The Factory

It's 2016. In the United States of America, the presidential elections and the Hillary Clinton email scandal are being discussed. The White House candidate would have used a Gmail address to deal with security matters. Republican candidate Donald Trump is making this case the main issue of his campaign. The topic is discussed on social media and hundreds of news articles are published.

Trump wins the elections. More than a year later, an investigation detects the origin of these and other news: a small town in North Macedonia called Veles. A city where dozens of young people were paid to publish and republish international content and Fake News.

““Dimitri”, fake news creator in Veles, Macedónia

The NBC tip leads to an FBI investigation. The agency and Congress formally accuse Russia of being behind this news. In practice, they accuse Russia of electoral interference.

Trump has always denied knowledge of Russian interference.

With allegations of interference in the 2016 elections, more than 150 Fake News sites managed in Veles by young people were identified. These sites were named to sound American, such as:​

  • WorldPoliticus.com
  • TrumpVision365.com
  • USConservativeToday.com
  • DonaldTrumpNews.com
  • USADailyPolitics.com

  
Profile of Fake News creators in Veles:

  • Young people in their 20s;
  • Elementary level education and no training in journalism, no stable job;
  • They consider that they do digital marketing and not journalism, they are proud of this work;
  • They consider this work to be a profitable and prestigious activity:
    • “Fake News in today's society is a process through which each person (...) can earn a lot of money and have great success in the advertising field”.
    • “Fake News in today’s society is a true lie that everyone knows about, but doesn’t realize.”
    • “Fake News is a type of work we think about, how to write and what to write on several pages to become popular and rich”.
  • They consider the risks to be minimal: “To be honest, at first I was a little afraid because it was about politics and because I was writing to important people like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but the risks didn't turn out to be serious; is that I can no longer exist on Facebook under my name.”