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Trending: Factually Challenged

Factually Challenged

05/11/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Trending, Factually Challenged

The people deliberately inventing fake news stories

The people deliberately inventing fake news stories. Why are they doing it? How does it spread?

We investigate the rise and rise of fake news online. Deliberately making up news stories to fool or entertain people is nothing new. But the arrival of social media has meant real and fictional stories are now presented in such a similar way, it can be increasingly difficult to tell the two apart. With 60% of US adults now getting some news from their Facebook feed, more and more of us are seeing and believing incorrect information.

We meet some of the people deliberately inventing false news stories and try to find out, why they are doing it, how it spreads, and whether it really matters if we are taken in by their hoaxes. 

(Photo: Stack of Newspapers. Credit: iStock)

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