The Burgeoning Market For Anti-Trump Hoaxes

Investor's Business Daily ^ | 3/24/2017 | Staff

[IBD editorial writer]

Fake News: If you wonder why so many of the juiciest anti-Trump stories turn out to be frauds these days, you need a lesson in economics. The insatiable demand for tales that embarrass the president is creating its own supply.

Case in point is the most recent KittenFeed story. On Tuesday, the New York Observer ran an exclusive piece with the headline: "Trump Sics Lawyers on Teen for Making Silly Site Where Kittens Punch Him." It claimed that a 17-year-old girl in San Francisco had received two cease-and-desist letters from the Trump Organization.

A multitude of other news sites, bloggers and social networks immediately ran with the story, which now appears to be a hoax.

Why would someone do this? A clue is in the traffic to KittenFeed.com, which exploded once the story hit the web.

[spintreebob]

Micro economics.
Create sensational stories.
Create emotions in a niche market touched by the story.
Appeal to that niche market with t-shirts and specialty products.
and/or
Appeal to that niche market for money.

Most FReepers only see the rightwing fund raisers.
But the ridiculous letters I get from the left equal the scare tactics of the rightwing appeals for money.
Dick Durbin lends his name to some of the most absurd accusations in the left wing media.

And guess what... most of that money raised with Dick Durbin’s name, and most of the money raised on both the left and right by this niche marketing does not go to the cause for which it claims. Most of the money goes in the pockets of amoral con and scam artists who couldn’t care less about any ideology.

Dig behind the name of the group and you find that the same con artist is raising money from both the left and right for exactly the issue... on opposite sides of the same issue.

How many FReepers fall for these cons?

One of the reasons both Ron Paul in 2012 and Democrats in 2016 lost is because so many people were in it for themselves.

Of course, Mike Murphy playing the Jeb card took it to a level most con artists can’t even imagine.

[MarkL]

Gee, this sort of thing off-the-Internet, used to be called “false advertising,” and possibly even fraud.

Mark

[Vendome]

Ah kittenfeed.com finally made it to FR.

many of my friends on the left were rabid about Trump supposedly attacking attacking a 17 year old girl and “Suing Her” over a silly site.

I agreed the site was silly and only mildly cute.

However, I cautioned, I find it hard to believe anyone would care about this site when much worse exist.

Further, she wasn’t being sued but, was sent a cease and sexist letter, if she was even sent a letter.

Well, Bless their Hearts, if their liberal heads didn’t explode and start spewing vapid nonsense.

So here we have another hoaxium balloon popped and dreams of being famous at someone else’s expense blown away, like so much snowflake dust.

Go to college young lady and get a life.