Paul Horner, who penned debunked articles about Bill Murray running for president and President Barack Obama opening a Muslim museum, was discovered unresponsive in his bed Sept 19.
There were no signs of foul play, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, and there was evidence the death could be due to an “accidental overdose.”
During the 2016 presidential election, Horner created a list of websites that appeared to be legitimate news sites to spread false information.
One article that claimed protesters who disrupted Donald Trump rallies were paid $3,500 went viral on the internet and fueled endless rumors about the alleged conspiracy.
Despite the fact that no evidence existed, Trump repeated the charge about the paid protesters while on stage during one of his rallies.
Horner told the Washington Post last November that although the information was clearly fabricated, he made thousands of dollars each month from them because Trump’s supporters were “easy to fool.”
In the same interview, Horner said he thought Trump won the White House because of him.
Man I am not going to go all Alex Jones here, but damn this is convenient.
Horner was the face of 2016 fake news, but he was by no means alone.
Without the Russians helping to push his fake news stories, and without Donald Trump himself actually repeating at least one of them to his audience, he would have had virtually no impact at all.
This guy made "thousands of dollars each month." Let me tell you, THAT is not easy to do.
In order to pull that off you have to have a lot of help from others who also want your articles to be spread far and wide.
And now that this guy is gone, I have a feeling that this is one investigative channel that is going to be a lot harder to explore.
Damn, I did go a little Alex Jones there, didn't I?
Source http://ift.tt/2yuzZyl
