Watch CNN's Anderson Cooper Confront A Fake News Author About Spreading False Information

Cooper: “You're Making Money Off Of False Information”

From the December 12 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:

Video file

ANDERSON COOPER (HOST): But satire, usually the reader knows it's satire. Like with The Onion, everybody knows The Onion is satire. A lot of folks are actually fooled by your, you know, by your articles. And as you know, you've talked about that, how they've been passed along as real by supporters of various candidates. Isn't that part of the point, to kind of make people -- 

PAUL HORNER: Sure. 

COOPER: You're hoping to make people look stupid by passing them on, but you're also spreading false information.

HORNER: Um, I do it -- I mean, I like trying to -- I do it to try to educate people. I see certain things wrong in society that I don't like -- 

COOPER: How are you educating people? 

HORNER: -- In different targets -- uh, within my stories, I'll have links to all the different facts that the purpose of the story -- I'll pick a purpose to write about, and then within that story, I'll have links to everything to back up the different purpose behind the story. 

COOPER: You are making money by having your stories passed around as much as possible? So there is an incentive -- I mean, this is not -- you're not doing this as a sort of sociological experiment or just, you know, I mean, you're making money off the spread of misinformation. Does it concern you at all that people believe your stuff? That people believe what you're actually writing?

Previously:

Report: Fake News Outperformed Real News On Facebook During Home Stretch Of 2016 Campaign

BuzzFeed: “Most Americans Who See Fake News Believe It”

CNN's Jake Tapper Explores The Epidemic Of Fake News Being Spread On Facebook And Google

Right-Wing Media Are Using The Term “Fake News” To Attack Credible News Sources