"The portion of the intelligence community report released to the
public on Jan 6th concluded that Russian President Putin "ordered an
influence campaign" in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,
in an effort to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic
process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and
potential presidency."" (Sataline 40)
"United States intelligence concluded that DCLeaks.com was created
in June 2016 by the Russian military intelligence agency G.R.U."
(Shane)
"Following the 2016 election, a specific concern has been the effect
of false stories - "fake news," as it has been dubbed - circulated
on social media. Recent evidence shows that: 1) 62 percent of US
adults get news on social media (Gottfried and Shearer 2016); 2) the
most popular fake news stories were more widely shared on Facebook
than the most popular mainstream news stories (Silverman 2016); 3)
many people who see fake news stories report that they believe them
(Silverman and Singer-Vine 2016); and 4) the most discussed fake
news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton
(Silverman 2016). Putting these facts together, a number of
commentators have suggested that Donald Trump would not have been
elected president were it not for the influence of fake news (for
examples, see Parkinson 2016; Read 2016; Dewey 2016)." (Allcott and
Gentzkow 212)
Sources
Allcott,
Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the
2016 Election.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives,
vol. 31, no. 2, 2017, pp. 211–235. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44235006.