http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/25/1603978/-Fake-news-network-tried-to-write-fake-news-for-liberals-but-they-just-never-take-the-bait?detail=email&link_id=10&can_id=41f513ebb62828c994670c4ca0050dd2&source=email-heres-trump-lobbying-to-be-impeached&email_referrer=heres-trump-lobbying-to-be-impeached&email_subject=heres-trump-lobbying-to-be-impeached

During the last three months before the election, most “news” passed along in Facebook was completely fabricated by groups who profit by passing along ads attached to fiction. This isn’t a matter of biased sites like Fox, or even stories generated through lopsided editing, as is common on Breitbart. These are completely fictional stories that originate at sites made up to look like legitimate television or newspaper sources.
NPR took the time to track down the man behind one of these sites, and found that he’s actually at the hub of a “news network,” where every single story is 100% fiction.
Coler's company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites — he won't say how many. ...
At any given time, Coler says, he has between 20 and 25 writers. And it was one of them who wrote the story in the Denver Guardian that an FBI agent who leaked Clinton emails was killed. Coler says that over 10 days the site got 1.6 million views. He says stories like this work because they fit into existing right-wing conspiracy theories.
It’s proven easy to create stories that reinforce right-wing memes and generate huge numbers by playing to existing assumptions, but it’s not exactly a both-sides-do-it situation.
“We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.”

Coler says he started the fake news sites as a means of infiltrating the conservative and white supremacist sites, though he doesn’t make it clear to what end. What is clear? The money.
He wouldn't give exact figures, but he says stories about other fake-news proprietors
making between $10,000 and $30,000 a month apply to him. Coler fits into a pattern of other faux news sites that make good money, especially by targeting Trump supporters.
It’s also clear that his fake stories are having real world effects. If Fox News showed that conservative voters were more than willing to take their commentary and news mixed inextricably together, and James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart demonstrated  that editing innocent events into terrifying conspiracies was just fine, Coler and his cohorts show that if anything Fox, O’Keefe and company simply think too much of their audience.
There’s no need to work that hard. There’s no need to ground “alt right” arguments in any reality. The audience is already so convinced of their inherent superiority that you can feed them anything, so long as it agrees with their pre-existing hatred.
[Coler] was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it. He wrote one fake story for NationalReport.net about how customers in Colorado marijuana shops were using food stamps to buy pot.
"What that turned into was a state representative in the House in Colorado proposing actual legislation to prevent people from using their food stamps to buy marijuana based on something that had just never happened," Coler says.
Though Facebook and Google have made minor moves against fake news by limiting access to their ad networks, Coler is not concerned.
There are literally hundreds of ad networks. Literally hundreds. Last week my inbox was just filled everyday with people, because they knew that Google was cracking down — hundreds of people wanting to work with my sites. Coler also says that his some of his fake news sites continue to pump out fictional stories while evading Google’s filters. And the future of fake news? It’s going to become even harder to stop, because it’s going to come with writing and with sites that make it look ever more real.
That's the way that it's going to be. Not just from where I am. I mean, this is probably going to be my last run in the fake-news biz, but I can promise you that it's not going to go away. It's even going to grow bigger and it's going to be harder to identify as it kind of evolves through these steps. ...
Why was there a difference in enthusiasm between progressives and the hard line white supremacist right when it came to this polls this November? In part because the right was literally getting their news from another world. Forget trying to “understand” some theorized economic malaise, these are voters who might as well live in Mordor. Their core beliefs are shaped by stories of babies being gleefully torn limb from limb and sold for parts, of sinister forces lurking at the edges of town ready to imprison those who don’t surrender their rights willingly, of a government run by a network of sadistic villains who openly murder anyone who causes them a moment of discomfort.
That’s not something that needs empathy. It needs to be fought.