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CBS News: Paul Horner, writer of fake news about 2016 election, found dead

K

KojiKnight

Member
A leading purveyor of fake news in the 2016 presidential election has died outside Phoenix at the age of 38.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Mark Casey said Tuesday authorities discovered Paul Horner dead in his bed on Sept. 18.

Casey said the Maricopa County medical examiner performed an autopsy which showed there were no signs of foul play. He said Horner had a history of prescription drug abuse and that "evidence at the scene suggested this could be an accidental overdose."
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They included a story falsely claiming former President Obama was gay and a radical Muslim, and another saying protesters were being paid thousands of dollars to demonstrate at Donald Trump's campaign rallies.

...

"My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don't fact-check anything — they'll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist," he told The Washington Post in November.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paul-horner-fake-news-writer-found-dead/

Apparent drug overdose. Not exactly sad to see someone like that go, but you can bet some conspiracy theories are incoming.
 
D

dabig2

Member
R.I.P.

Always a tragedy to see such a hard-nosed, hard-working American man murdered by SOROS and his jackbooted thugs.
 
T

the_darkness

Banned
JettDash said:
Ones that in their own word helped Donald Trump be elected president, yes.
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Don't be dumb. Every complete fucking moron who swallowed this shit and voted for Trump - or didn't vote against him - are the ones responsible for getting him elected.

This guy was a dipshit but he had millions of co-conspirators.
 
J

JettDash

Junior Member
the_darkness said:
Don't be dumb. Every complete fucking moron who swallowed this shit and voted for Trump - or didn't vote against him - are the ones responsible for getting him elected.

This guy was a dipshit but he had millions of co-conspirators.
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Who says I care about the lives of the other people responsible.
 
G

Game-Biz

Member
Huh
BbZiSln.gif
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M

Mr Swine

Banned
So is this going to be a Seth Rich 2.0 but with him being killed over the fake news and that The Donald on reddit will blow this up?
 
P

Poltergust

Member
Huh, I remember reading the story on this guy back when this thing broke out less than a year ago.

Frankly, I doubt there actually is any foul play involved based on the report, but it is still a little eerie to see someone you read about recently die.
 
K

Keasar

Member
Usually I do but this is an instance where I can't feel sympathy.

Because of people like him, we are currently suffering a huge anti-intellectual plauge of people who refuse to believe facts, news, statistics, science and more. I am honestly quite furious at him.
 
C

captjohnboyd

Member
Did he get paid to post this fake garbage or? I just don't understand the motivation behind this shit. If it was just to elect trump then why be so candid about how dumb his supporters are and fess to them all being fake?

Truly a piece of shit
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
captjohnboyd said:
Did he get paid to post this fake garbage or? I just don't understand the motivation behind this shit. If it was just to elect trump then why be so candid about how dumb his supporters are and fess to them all being fake?

Truly a piece of shit
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He linked those Facebook posts to his own site, so he could get ad revenue there. So yes, he got paid.
 
W

waveuponwave

Member
That Washington Post interview with him is pretty interesting:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm_term=.6c58a3c44485

Why? I mean — why would you even write that?

Just 'cause his supporters were under the belief that people were getting paid to protest at their rallies, and that's just insane. I've gone to Trump protests — trust me, no one needs to get paid to protest Trump. I just wanted to make fun of that insane belief, but it took off. They actually believed it.

I thought they'd fact-check it, and it'd make them look worse. I mean that's how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it's false, then they look like idiots. But Trump supporters — they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything! Now he's in the White House. Looking back, instead of hurting the campaign, I think I helped it. And that feels [bad].
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Yeah, I mean — a lot of the sites people are talking about, they're just total BS sites. There's no creativity or purpose behind them. I'm glad they're getting rid of them. I don't like getting lumped in with Huzlers. I like getting lumped in with the Onion. The stuff I do — I spend more time on it. There's purpose and meaning behind it. I don't just write fake news just to write it.
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Seems like he was just really naive and thought he was doing satire while trumpers actually spread his stories

On the other hand...

This whole Google AdSense thing is pretty scary. And all this Facebook stuff. I make most of my money from AdSense — like, you wouldn't believe how much money I make from it. Right now I make like $10,000 a month from AdSense.
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... for a misunderstood satirist he profited pretty heavily from all this
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
This guy's story, minus the death, sounds just like that guy in Huntington Beach.
Same joke start, same liberal personal politics, same failed attempts at suckering Dems, sticking with targeting Trumpies despite reservations...
The other guy was making at least three times as much money.
 
W

Westbahnhof

Banned
JettDash said:
Good.
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The guy did disgusting stuff and was most likely a disgusting person. Everything he did reflected that he was. No reason to feel bad.
But good? Really? What exactly is good about it?

Edit: And yeah, I thought about the death penalty too. Are you for it?
 
Mistake

Mistake

Member
As much as you guys might hate me for saying it, getting that much a month for making up bullshit is pretty nice. He also helped highlight a big problem we have when it comes to what information people decide to believe. However, I blame that entirely on our under funded and crumbling education system

This is based on what I read about the guy above, I know nothing else
 
S

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
Isn't this the guy who was trolling the right by making ridiculous fake news and then when they bought it like the dumbfucks they are, he started making major money and decided to roll with it.

I cant lie, I'm liberal as fuck but if I was a making ten grand a month writing shitty fake news that probably requires five minutes of effort...it would be hard to stop.
 
A

Apdiddy

Member
Part of me really wants to think Russia has nothing to do with this. The circumstances around his death, not to mention Russia's involvement with buying fake news ads on Facebook, makes me wonder if they are involved. It seems remarkably similar to the deaths of Russian citizens that had some link to the Margarsky Act in the U.S. They were perfectly healthy until they were found dead (one with a bullet to the back of the head, one while he was asleep, one in his car, etc.)

I think Mueller's investigation would have found his way to this guy, but that may be stretching it.
 
H

Hazmat

Member
A fitting tribute would be for Wikipedia to not monitor, review, or check the citations for any of the content on his page.
 
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