Laura Sydell
The Father Of The Internet Sees His Invention Reflected Back Through A 'Black Mirror'
In 1984, two men were thinking a lot about the Internet. One of them invented it. The other is an artist who would see its impact on society with uncanny prescience.First is the man often called "the father of the Internet," Vint Cerf.
We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned
A lot of fake and misleading news stories were shared across social media during the 2016 election. One that got a lot of traffic had this headline: "FBI Agent Suspected In Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide." The story is completely false, but it was shared on Facebook over half a million times. We wondered who was behind that story and why it was written. It appeared on a site that had the look and feel of a local newspaper. Denverguardian.com even had the local weather. But it had only one news story — the fake one. We tried to look up who owned it.
Eventually we found our man: Jestin Coler. Coler's company, Disinfomedia, owns many faux news sites — he won't say how many. But he says his is one of the biggest fake-news businesses out there, which makes him a sort of godfather of the industry. Below are highlights of NPR's interview with Coler.