'Wikileaks just killed Hillary' ... 'Hillary indictment imminent' ... 'Obama caught on live TV telling illegal aliens it's OK to vote. Promises the law will not come after you!' ... 'Hillary Clinton In 2013: "I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They're Honest And Can't Be Bought"'.

These are headlines from the few hundred fake news websites that have sprung up around the US election. The sites with names like WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com make money through sharing in Facebook ad revenue. Business is booming, and the centre of the fake news clickbait industry is the small town of Veles in Macedonia, apparently known for its porcelain. Here, young Macedonians reportedly earn thousands of dollars creating articles that are eagerly consumed by Trump supporters in America.

Hillary Clinton never said Donald Trump should run for office, but a story claiming she did exactly that (see headline above) has racked up hundreds of thousands of shares, reactions and comments. Other fake news articles have done almost as well, and together they have reached millions of people.

The stories tend to be either straight up fakes or are merely heavily biased - designed to confirm the prejudices and stir the passions of their readers. There's an irony here. This election, we've heard a lot about the influence of Russia, about Putin 'hacking' the election and backing Trump, and of the sway of right-wing news channels like Fox. But the entrepreneurs in Veles are not about ideology or power games; their motivation is very American; it's pure capitalism.

Why Veles?

Before this election, people in Veles were already making money through making Facebook content that would be be popular with Americans. Under the Facebook business model, publishers get a tiny proportion of the tiny amount of money that an advertiser pays for each click. Advertisers pay more per click in America than they do in Europe, because the average revenue per user is much higher (about $12.43 per user to $3.98).

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Mostly this content was to do with sports and health - these were the topics that did well on Facebook. Then Trump came along and folks in Veles learned nothing did better than sensationalist pro-Trump news. In April, the site meta.mk reported at least six pro-Trump fake news sites in Veles; a few months later the Guardian reported 150. Meta.mk quoted a 22-year-old computer science student:

"I thought, what would interest Americans the most, and it was either this or rugby (American Football), some of the news I write, and other parts I take from other web-sites, I then translate them. I really don't know if what I translate from other web-sites is true or not, I am only doing this because of the Google Ads"

Why Trump?

BuzzFeed reported that Veles has experimented with left-leaning content, but it didn't do as well. Nothing sells Facebook clicks like the Donald. This may be partly because of the air of conspiracy that has marked this election; the general distrust of mainstream news sources and the 'media elites', and the sheer passion of the Trump supporters. It has meant Trump supporters are more likely to share news from unknown news websites, and because so much is being written about Trump all the time, the Veles news sites can simply copy the original content and repost it under a click-friendly headline. They never run out of news, and it costs almost nothing to publish. The article about Clinton wanting Trump to run for office was lifted from an 'independent' website that admits it publishes fake news:

"This is HYBRID site of news and satire. Part of our stories already happens, part, not yet. NOT all of our stories are true!"

What about after the election?

Earlier this year, it emerged Facebook's 'trending' news module showing popular news for users was being curated and tweaked by human beings. To protect itself from accusations of (left-wing) bias, Facebook sacked the curators and installed an algorithm, which then began promoting fake news articles (plus an article about a man masturbating with a chicken sandwich). The episode shows the fake news problem is bigger than Trump; there are billions of Facebook users, and billions of links posted to the site every day. Incorrect news can travel swiftly across networks. The algorithms are unable to detect the fakes, but human moderators are open to accusations of bias (not to mention the cost).

At the same time, there's an incentive to publish sensational or fake news in order to cash in on more pay-per-click ad revenue. Accuracy moderation would arguably make Facebook less engaging (read: less bias-confirming), and this would hurt the company's bottom line.

The fake news sites are able to absorb the attacks of mainstream media. Like an organism evolving to a new state of self-awareness and sophistication, the fake news sites have begun reporting on fake news sites. After the Guardian article, the website prntly.com ran a story about Macedonian front groups "preying on Trump supporters for money and information" and backed by George Soros - the billionaire donor to the Democrats, and a perceived liberal 'elite'.

The headline: BREAKING: Wikileaks exposes Soros tied Macedonian clickbait empire to dupe Trump fans.

This is truly post-truth politics.