In the weeks since the November 8 election and US media reports on the spread of so-called “fake news” during the presidential campaign, we've been exposed to an ever-growing amount of finger-pointing blaming everyone from the Russian government to Facebook – all in an effort to try and explain the election results. By no surprise then, shortly after the election, I was listening to a radio program on NPR about a small town in FYROM (Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia) called Veles - and their role in this narrative.
The town is poor, typical for the region, but recently has seen an insurgence of new BMW’s, Mercedes and other fancy cars ....and people. This new-found wealth, all of it, came from a new industry, more specifically fake news and the revenues it generates from advertisers. The scary part of the story was how honest the interview was. Students from a local university shared with listeners how, in a depressed part of the world, they found a way to make a great living by hopping on the sensationalist wagon. And as the clicks and likes started to build in a viral like frenzy, these same university students hired children in high school to help make up, splice and dice more new (fake) news and funny videos for the American consumer. Cash is king, they need it, and they found a way to make lots of it – and we know what the results of their efforts were.
This unfortunately, is one of those unforeseen examples that Yanis Varoufakis talks about in his Ted Talk of how capitalism, left unregulated and unfettered, will devour itself. For those that haven’t seen it it’s worth a watch. And this post is highlighting a real-life current example what can happen. In this example, that many people, across many borders, made a lot of money during this election and yet none of that “earned wealth” will better society - ever.
Although I do have a strong opinion on this topic, this post is not meant to take a side or argue why one position is more valid than the other (that would be torture to write about). Instead, I want to pose the following question, "What’s the difference between the sensationalist fake news we read during the election and the established news that we watch on television, online or read in newspapers everyday, which as we all know is equally manipulated by special interests? Is there a difference?" That’s the question we need to answer folks.
