Why Fake News Campaigns Are So Effective

The term “fake news” has been added to American lexicon courtesy of current President Trump. He has used it to dissuade Americans from believing many of the negative stories about him that have come out since the presidential election of 2016. Disinformation campaigns are nothing new as countries have been running them for decades in wars and battles. But we are now seeing increased targeted campaigns and stories without any factual basis. In this era of big data, these “fake news campaigns” are micro-targeting naïve consumers to gain an advantage. Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at The Wharton School, joins host Dan Loney to discuss his recent opinion piece examining this recent pattern of fake news campaigns on Knowledge at Wharton.