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Google trends graph shows a fairly recent and step spike for the phrase "fake news"[1]. I'm sure the phrase was intermittently used for some time, but it's cur

Google trends graph shows a fairly recent and step spike for the phrase "fake news"[1]. I'm sure the phrase was intermittently used for some time, but it's current usage send new, and much more popular. My memory is the same as the comment you are replying to. "Fake news" was a left attack on the media supporting Donald Trump (think Breitbart). Trump and friends then coopted the term to describe the mainstream media and repeated it enough for the term to become associated more as Trump-thing than anything else. 1 - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Fake%20news https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

WalterGR 9y ago
"Fake news" was a left attack on the media supporting Donald Trump (think Breitbart). No, "fake news" was used to label news that was quite literally fake. As in: false. Not true. It was not used to describe simply biased reporting. As others have said, Trump co-opted the term and uses it to describe news that he doesn't like, regardless of truth. Thus, he has muddied the meaning of the term and created a new dog whistle. Brilliant move on his part. Fake news was generated to appeal to all sides of the political spectrum, but the pro-right literally untrue news was much more popular than the pro-left literally untrue news. This is a good article on the subject: "Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex" https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ It's opens: "The first article about Donald Trump that Boris ever published described how, during a campaign rally in North Carolina, the candidate slapped a man in the audience for disagreeing with him. This never happened, of course."
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