
The Macedonian Teens Who Mastered Fake News - dsr12
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/
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DarkKomunalec
You can shape somoene's political opinion almost any way you want by reporting
honestly on each story, without omitting anything relevant. Just choose
carefully which stories to report.

That's why I find it hard to worry about stereotypical fake news - biased
sampling is a powerful tool, and much harder to debunk.

Focusing on statistics instead of individual stories helps, but is doubly
limited - it doesn't sway people as much as appeal to emotion, and the
statistics have to be available. If you're trying to decide which one of
several warring factions is the 'good' guys, there will be no statistics, only
a bunch of isolated reports, possibly funded by some government trying to sway
public opinion for its own purposes (e.g.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/03/how-britain-
fu...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/03/how-britain-funds-the-
propaganda-war-against-isis-in-syria) \- in this case it's against ISIS, which
I happen to agree aren't the 'good' guys, but there's no indication such
methods are limited to opposing ISIS, and deciding -which- group of rebels to
help can be just as powerful - wouldn't want to give power to someone who's
gonna nationalize oil production, or weaken patent protections on crops (
[https://www.grain.org/article/entries/150-iraq-s-new-
patent-...](https://www.grain.org/article/entries/150-iraq-s-new-patent-law-a-
declaration-of-war-against-farmers) )!).

