WEBVTT

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In April of this year,

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the Republican led Senate

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intelligence committee

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unanimously found that Russia

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interfered with our elections

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and attempted to undermine

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American democracy, correct?

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And I said so too.

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Is it ever appropriate, sir,

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for the President
to solicit or accept foreign

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assistance in an election?

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It depends on what
kind of assistance.

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Is it ever appropriate

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for the President or

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presidential candidate to accept

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or solicit foreign assistance of

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any kind in his or her election?

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No, it’s not appropriate.

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Ok, sorry you had to struggle

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with that one
Mister Attorney General.

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We are going to make
this decision now,

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the Fox News decision desk

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has called Pennsylvania

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for Donald Trump,

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this means that Donald Trump

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will be the 45th President

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of the United States.

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His candidacy starting

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on an escalator ride

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one year ago.

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In the week or so
since the election

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there has been
mounting criticism

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of whether Facebook and

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Google used enough

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editorial responsibility in

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screening out fake news sites.

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Turns out,

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that a hundred different sites

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came from teenagers in one

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small Macedonian town

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who were looking to make money

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online and found that the best

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way to generate shares

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on Facebook is to publish

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sensationalist and often

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false content

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that caters to Trump supporters.

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Do you run a fake news website?

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No.

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Yes, you do.

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Instead of studying,

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teenagers are

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trying to earn money

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by writing, setting
up news sites,

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and passing on stories

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from other fake sites.

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We came to Veles to find out who

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is behind these websites.

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The fact that fake news

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was going more viral

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towards election day than

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mainstream news reporting is

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really surprising and I

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think something that we should

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be concerned about.

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The billionaire businessman,

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Donald Trump

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made it official today.

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I’m really rich,

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I assure you that.

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Donald is great at

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the one-liners

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but he’s a chaos candidate.

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I believe in a society

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where all people do well

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not just a handful

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of billionaires.

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Thousands more emails

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appearing to show -

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Director Comey said in his

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letter he’s not certain if

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these emails are significant -

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President Obama this week

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calling the growing problem of

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fake news on the internet

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\"a threat to democracy\"

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The Pope is taking a stand

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against fake and tawdry news -

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If we can’t discriminate between

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serious arguments and propaganda

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then we have problems.

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According to Hillary Clinton

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,this tiny nation has destroyed

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America’s democratic tradition.

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There’s all these stories about

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guys over in Macedonia

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who are running

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these fake news sites, and

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I’ve seen them now,

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and you sit there

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and it looks like a

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sort of low level CNN operation,

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- or a fake newspaper

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-or a fake newspaper

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- like the Denver Guardian

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If I ever run for president,

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I want these same Macedonian

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campaign consultants

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who are the geniuses -

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Of course, everybody was shocked

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What is happening?

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How is this possible?

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And then,

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very rapidly, very fast,

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it was like everybody

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was getting into the story,

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of what actually happened.

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These pictures coming in from

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the Reuters news agency,

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around three thousand migrants

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who spent the night

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out in the open.

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The media sphere here has been

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absolutely deteriorating

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for over a decade.

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We have been

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We have been 34th in the

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freedom of press

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just until 2006 and 2007,

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now we are in 118th place.

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Why? Because our mainstream

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media here became

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fake news media

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And these...

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people became grown ups,

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they became adults,

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in an atmosphere of fake news.

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So it was something that was

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a result of...

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the total media darkness of the

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previous government created

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and they took control of the

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media in the country.

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So again coming to the

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issue in Veles,

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these kids have very good school

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from our local situation here.

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Fake news, real gunfire

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A North Carolina man, arrested

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in a DC pizza shop after

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brandishing a gun.

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Telling police he was there to

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investigate a conspiracy theory

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called “Pizzagate”.

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According to police, Welch said

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that he had read online that

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that the Comet

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ping pong restaurant

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was harboring child sex slaves.

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The accusation came from this

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unhinged story that originated

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online days before the election.

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For the 2016 election,

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this was the first time in US

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history where the majority of

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Americans received their news,

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not from traditional
media outlets

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The majority of Americans were

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receiving their news from
social media platforms.

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And the legacy media outlets

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were much weaker, they had

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undergone a series of layoffs,

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some media outlets just a

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complete skeletal staff,

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so they didn’t have
the resources

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to push back against

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outright falsehoods.

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It’s hardly news that the

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newspaper business
is on the ropes.

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Reporters have been laid off,

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circulation has plummeted,

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the Post has closed bureaus

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around the country and

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around the world.

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Some papers have folded

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completely, others have reduced

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the number of pages,

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virtually an entire industry

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in free fall.

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We see Americans losing trust in

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the media for a number of

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reasons and at the same time,

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media outlets having to struggle

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with declining revenue

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so they can’t produce
quality journalism

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That creates a deadly dynamic

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for democracy.

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People are pivoting to social

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media which unfortunately

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incentivizes fake news -

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salacious news.

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So you have this kind of

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social media norm,

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where it’s ok to steal another

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media outlet\'s story just by

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changing the headline
or a few words.

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And because of the algorithms

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social media confirms people’s

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existing biases.

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People can’t even determine what

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is original journalism anymore.

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I started tracking fake news and

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disinformation shortly after the

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2016 election.

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We started looking everyday,

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trying to find who the
particular actors were,

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and...

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there was an attorney who

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established, as far as we know,

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the first fake news site in

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Macedonia. A website called
\"USA Politics Today\"

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that did traffic in

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hyper partisan information

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and sometimes hoaxes and other

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people in town, seeing the

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success that he had, started
launching their own

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and it became its own industry.

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USA Today Politics content did

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seem to spark a lot of eyeballs

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from Americans

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on things that were not true.

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It had conspiracy theories,

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stuff about Hillary
Clinton’s health,

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and...

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it also trafficked in

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flat out hoaxes

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multiple flat out hoaxes

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saying stuff like the
Bible and Quran are equal,

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or that Jill Stein endorsed
Donald Trump,

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or that the Supreme Court
had banned Sharia Law.

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Sometimes they did so well

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that they would even reach

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Facebook’s trending topics

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making it onto the front page

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giving it an wider reach

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These pages, from his sites, had

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about 2 millions followers.

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Facebook and Google have come

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under fire for their supposed

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role in spreading fake news

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throughout the election

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Now both companies are making

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changes to stop this spread of

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false information.

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You bear this responsibility,

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you’ve created these platforms,

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and now they are being misused.

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You have to be the ones

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to do something about it.

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I wish I could tell you that

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we’re going to be able to stop

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all interference

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but that just wouldn’t
be realistic.

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There will always be bad actors

00:23:46.883 --> 00:23:47.843
in the world and we can’t

00:23:47.844 --> 00:23:50.095
prevent all governments
from all interference,

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but we can make it harder.

00:23:52.889 --> 00:23:54.223
Suddenly people were realizing

00:23:54.224 --> 00:23:55.824
that there was a darker
side of Facebook,

00:23:55.934 --> 00:23:58.561
that is was also a platform for

00:23:58.562 --> 00:24:00.105
lies and deception.

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So...

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how Facebook responds and what

00:24:04.443 --> 00:24:06.445
they do is still an
open question.

00:24:07.737 --> 00:24:09.363
Economic actors like the

00:24:09.364 --> 00:24:11.282
Macedonian trolls that I think

00:24:11.283 --> 00:24:12.283
we’ve all heard about,

00:24:12.659 --> 00:24:14.869
basically folks who don’t

00:24:14.870 --> 00:24:16.120
have an ideological goal,

00:24:16.121 --> 00:24:17.456
they\'re just trying to

00:24:17.956 --> 00:24:19.290
write the most sensational thing

00:24:19.291 --> 00:24:20.291
they can,

00:24:20.375 --> 00:24:21.625
in order to get people to click

00:24:21.626 --> 00:24:23.920
on it so they can make money
on ads - it’s all economics.

00:24:24.212 --> 00:24:25.212
So the way to fight that

00:24:25.213 --> 00:24:26.964
is we make it so they can’t run

00:24:26.965 --> 00:24:28.340
our ads, they can’t make money,

00:24:28.341 --> 00:24:30.050
we make it so we can detect what

00:24:30.051 --> 00:24:31.135
they’re doing and show it less

00:24:31.136 --> 00:24:32.888
in news feeds so they
can make less money.

00:24:33.430 --> 00:24:34.847
One person’s fake news, is

00:24:34.848 --> 00:24:36.307
another person’s news. And the

00:24:36.308 --> 00:24:37.725
idea that Facebook, or Google,

00:24:37.726 --> 00:24:39.143
or Twitter could remove things

00:24:39.144 --> 00:24:40.144
without our knowledge

00:24:40.312 --> 00:24:41.437
shouldn’t that get
us up in arms?

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This is out of control, and

00:24:42.190 --> 00:24:43.230
everybody’s really got to have a

00:24:43.231 --> 00:24:44.607
gut check here - you’re being

00:24:44.608 --> 00:24:47.194
censored and they say you’re
a conspiracy theorist.

00:24:47.277 --> 00:24:48.819
It’s definitely happening and

00:24:48.820 --> 00:24:50.489
it’s very scary, you have

00:24:50.697 --> 00:24:52.823
60% of millennials get the

00:24:52.824 --> 00:24:54.492
majority of their news from

00:24:54.493 --> 00:24:56.578
Facebook and that
trending timeline.

00:24:56.620 --> 00:24:57.954
Breitbart, the news site,

00:24:58.497 --> 00:25:00.831
has basically lost about 30% of

00:25:00.832 --> 00:25:02.458
its traffic since that happened.

00:25:02.459 --> 00:25:04.085
FOX by the way is down too.

00:26:49.774 --> 00:26:52.234
Everybody are aware that this is

00:26:52.235 --> 00:26:54.779
a wrongdoing, that this is

00:26:55.113 --> 00:26:57.574
damaging the media,

00:26:57.991 --> 00:26:59.451
the professional journalism,

00:26:59.909 --> 00:27:02.787
and the final damage is
on the society as well.

00:27:03.747 --> 00:27:06.750
The biggest damage is on
the country image.

00:27:07.917 --> 00:27:10.462
But there is still enormous

00:27:11.087 --> 00:27:12.839
creation of the fake news

00:27:13.048 --> 00:27:14.799
mainly on social media.

00:27:15.800 --> 00:27:17.427
So we are trying to condemn

00:27:17.677 --> 00:27:18.677
the fake news,

00:27:18.803 --> 00:27:20.846
it’s simply not a proper way

00:27:20.847 --> 00:27:22.932
to earn money.

00:27:53.588 --> 00:27:55.715
What we saw in the 2016 election

00:27:56.132 --> 00:27:57.508
that’s been a microcosm of

00:27:57.509 --> 00:27:58.885
what’s happening globally.

00:27:59.260 --> 00:28:00.427
We see this in Indonesia,

00:28:00.428 --> 00:28:01.845
with the mayor of Jakarta taken

00:28:01.846 --> 00:28:03.932
down over essentially fake news.

00:28:04.182 --> 00:28:06.016
We see this in Myanmar with the

00:28:06.017 --> 00:28:07.976
genocide being promoted through

00:28:07.977 --> 00:28:09.603
fake news, we see this in the

00:28:09.604 --> 00:28:11.188
developing world where there is

00:28:11.189 --> 00:28:14.234
even less of a media institution
for the people to turn to.