Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by simonh 2269 days ago
I don't know. I suspect a lot of people spreading fake news, conspiracy theories and crap like this know perfectly well it's rubbish.
1 comments

Certainly some people do that, but I would imagine it's a very small subset that are either trolls or consequentialists who feel the end justifies the means who originate it. Most who spread it are useful idiots (I use the word idiot very lightly. It's easy for anyone who is human to get suckered by a fake news story here or there).

I have quite a few family and friends that unintentionally spread fake news because they really thought the story was real. One in particular is extremely hateful toward fake news but made a conclusion based on a headline that turned out wrong (we don't all have time to read every story we see, as much as we'd want to).