Fake Think Tanks Fuel Fake News--And the President's Tweets

A longstanding network of bogus "think tanks" raise disinformation to a pseudoscience, and their studies' pull quotes and flashy stats become the "evidence" driving viral, fact-free stories. Not to mention President Trump's tweets. These organizations have always existed: they're old-school propagandists with new-school, tech-savvy reach. They've been ginning up so-called research for everyone from shady corporations to anti-LGBTQ groups to white supremacists for decades--they're practiced, and their faux-academic veneer is thick and glossy. Which makes them harder to brush off than your garden-variety liar.