Meet the guy who pranked Infowars into publishing fake news about Trump. Markus Muir, 27, set up a fake Twitter account in which he pretended to be working for NBC and sent direct messages to Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson, claiming BuzzFeed News and CNN were ready to publish damaging footage on Trump. Muir said Watson didn't ask for any details that could verify the story, or to see any evidence "to who I was or how I knew about these tapes." According to Muir, Watson didn't even ask for evidence proving that Muir worked for NBC. Muir, who works in digital marketing in Glasgow, answering questions via email, explained how he became interested in the post-election discussion about fake news, and didn't have a plan in mind when he initially messaged Watson: "I was watching a discussion on CNN looking at fake news and it had tied into a conversation I was having with a few friends who are journalists in Scotland," he said. Many people on right-wing Facebook shared the story claiming it proved collusion between various news outlets, as part of a plot to bring down Donald Trump. "I think the term fake news is being weaponised and thrown at well sourced articles and good reporters in order to delegitimise journalism as a whole." However, he admitted that the prank, which generated an Infowars article, ultimately might have contributed to the spread of fake news—the same phenomenon he was trying to fight. Muir got in touch with BuzzFeed after the story was published. BuzzFeed is fake news.”
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A Scottish man has played a prank on alt-right conspiracy site Infowars, by tricking it into publishing a totally, completely false report about president-elect Donald Trump.
Markus Muir, 27, set up a fake Twitter account in which he pretended to be working for NBC and sent direct messages to Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson, claiming BuzzFeed News and CNN were ready to publish damaging footage on Trump.
The Infowars article quotes the Muir messages in several occasions and was widely shared by right-wing pages and figureheads on Facebook. According to the messages, the footage would show Trump using the n-word in a long-lost outtake of The Apprentice.
Muir said Watson didn’t ask for any details that could verify the story, or to see any evidence “to who I was or how I knew about these tapes.” According to Muir, Watson didn’t even ask for evidence proving that Muir worked for NBC.
Muir, who works in digital marketing in Glasgow, answering questions via email, explained how he became interested in the post-election discussion about fake news, and didn’t have a plan in mind when he initially messaged Watson:
“I was watching a discussion on CNN looking at fake news and it had tied into a conversation I was having with a few friends who are journalists in Scotland,” he said.
“I didn’t have a plan, it was spur of the moment.”
Watson had been retweeted into Muir’s timeline a few times over the last couple of weeks and “everything he wrote was factually inaccurate and often…
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