Channel 4 News reveals a cottage industry that produced fake online news stories during the US election from an unexpected location - the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
With thousands of fake news articles circulating from this region, some Americans believe that US public opinion was swayed and helped Donald Trump win the US elections. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to issue a statement in regards to doing more to stop the proliferation of fake news sites from its platform because many blamed the social media giant itself.
But, is this misinformation industry something new for the former Yugoslav republic? The answer is no.
Since the advent of the internet, the world has been inundated with thousands of fake Greek history websites from the very same former Yugoslav republic in collusion with their powerful lobby groups (some of which parade as "human rights groups") in Canada, USA and Australia.
These fake Greek history websites along with their social media pages (and usually peppered with very racist, anti-Hellenic overtones) especially target one Greek region in particular - that of Greece's northern province of Macedonia.
They target Macedonia in order to cause confusion in mainstream societies by gearing their message towards an unsuspecting sector of society who will be very easily swayed to view Greece as the aggressor in what is known as the Macedonian Issue - the dispute over the name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The reality is, just as the fake news story that broke after the US elections, the aggressor in the Macedonian Issue has always been the very same former Yugoslav republic and their master propagandists both at home and abroad.
With thousands of fake news articles circulating from this region, some Americans believe that US public opinion was swayed and helped Donald Trump win the US elections. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to issue a statement in regards to doing more to stop the proliferation of fake news sites from its platform because many blamed the social media giant itself.
But, is this misinformation industry something new for the former Yugoslav republic? The answer is no.
Since the advent of the internet, the world has been inundated with thousands of fake Greek history websites from the very same former Yugoslav republic in collusion with their powerful lobby groups (some of which parade as "human rights groups") in Canada, USA and Australia.
These fake Greek history websites along with their social media pages (and usually peppered with very racist, anti-Hellenic overtones) especially target one Greek region in particular - that of Greece's northern province of Macedonia.
They target Macedonia in order to cause confusion in mainstream societies by gearing their message towards an unsuspecting sector of society who will be very easily swayed to view Greece as the aggressor in what is known as the Macedonian Issue - the dispute over the name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The reality is, just as the fake news story that broke after the US elections, the aggressor in the Macedonian Issue has always been the very same former Yugoslav republic and their master propagandists both at home and abroad.
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