A US hacker says he built a network of “news” sites and Facebook Groups in 2015 to push bogus stories after a company hired him to “stop Hillary Clinton”
He was hired to build a fake news op but now wants to put things right. — This is the story of the mastermind behind … Tweets: @ax_sharma , @robviglione , @fark , @dangillmor , @hexadecim8 , @czedwards , @seth_hettena , @brooklynmarie , @greglinden , @brianweeden , @sandyskipper1 , @msbrumfield , @ax_sharma , @karlbode , and @cstross See also Mediagazer Tweets: Ax Sharma / @ax_sharma : EXCLUSIVE: Ringleader of a massive fake news empire, ‘Hacker X’ comes out. Through extensive efforts, he created an untraceable webring of HUNDREDS of ‘news’ sites to spread conspiracy theories, propaganda to tip the 2016 US Election in Trump's favor. https://arstechnica.com/... Rob Viglione / @robviglione : “Hacker X”—the American who built a pro-Trump fake news empire—unmasks himself | Ars Technica “The new war is to wake up those who have been manipulated, while actively taking out the fake news campaigns” https://arstechnica.com/... Dr. Farkenstein / @fark : Jackwagon who greatly contributed to the hellscape we're living in now wants to put things right. So, we're all cool, yeah? https://fark.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : This story raises tons of questions, including ones about journalism. The company behind this scam remains unidentified (at least in the article), which strikes me as an unfortunate journalistic compromise — at best. https://twitter.com/... @hexadecim8 : I don't usually engage like this on my main twitter, but I'm just going to say it flat out. This is the most boring, uncool shit I've seen anyone take responsibility for. https://arstechnica.com/... @czedwards : Why “Social liberal, fiscal conservative” tech bros are sewer slime, part 75,396. Also, I want receipts from this dickweed. What city and state did Democrats literally destroy? May his every shit be constipation or diarrhea, for the rest of his life. https://twitter.com/... Seth Hettena / @seth_hettena : While Robert Willis has identified himself as “Hacker X,” he's not naming the secretive firm he worked for (confusingly identified in the story with the fake name Koala Media). https://twitter.com/... Brooke Binkowski / @brooklynmarie : “After carefully studying the Facebook pages maintained by Koala staff, which were reaching about 3 million people weekly, Willis began using information-warfare tactics...” https://arstechnica.com/... Greg Linden / @greglinden : “Facebook, which directed plenty of traffic to Koala, never cut the site off ... Koala's published ‘news’ pieces reached over 30 million people a week.” @brianweeden : This, about how an American hacker helped build a massive pro-Trump fake news media universe that helped brainwash his own family: https://arstechnica.com/... https://twitter.com/... Sandy Skipper / @sandyskipper1 : @cstross @mtlawmiami He claims Russia's role was minimal? They most likely amplified his lies via all their fake Fakebook profiles. “For two years, he ran websites and Facebook groups that spread bogus stories, conspiracy theories, and propaganda.” https://www.technologyreview.com/ ... Cynthia Brumfield / @msbrumfield : So many interesting passages in Willis' post, but in light of Facebook's massive role in disseminating false political information favoring Trump, this bit of Willis' post is fascinating. https://twitter.com/... Ax Sharma / @ax_sharma : His team created several Facebook groups appealing to the Trump voter base where these “news” articles were shared, boosting the sites' 3 million monthly readership to 30 million. Articles generated by ‘Hacker X’ were retweeted by prominent personalities and unwary voters alike. Karl Bode / @karlbode : we're not providing the real name of this still-operational bullshit farm...why, exactly? https://arstechnica.com/... Charlie Brain Worms Stross / @cstross : “Hacker X”—the American who built a pro-Trump fake news empire—unmasks himself. He was hired to build a fake news op but now wants to put things right: https://arstechnica.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This confession closes a loop that related coverage has been circling for years: Facebook's own [[a:970846|internal report found Eastern European troll farms reaching 140M US users monthly before 2020]], with most victims never choosing to follow the Pages involved. Willis's account shows the domestic version ran on the same mechanics years earlier — a network of 'news' sites plus Facebook Groups doing the distribution.
It also sits alongside reporting on Turning Point Action paying teens to promote pro-Trump posts and Cambridge Analytica's data-driven voter modeling as pieces of one pattern: influence operations outsourced to contractors who treat platforms as free amplification. What makes this story different is that an operator has gone on record naming the machinery — including that Facebook's own referral traffic carried Koala Media's output to over 30 million people a week.
First-order effects
- Facebook's distribution role is now documented from the inside: its Groups and referral traffic were the delivery mechanism for Koala Media's pro-Trump propaganda ahead of the 2016 election, not just a passive host.
- The unnamed firm that hired Willis to 'stop Hillary Clinton' faces exposure risk, since the confession gives journalists and investigators a thread to pull from contractor up to client.
Second-order effects
- Platform trust teams inherit a concrete case study: because Willis built untraceable site webrings plus Groups, enforcement that targets individual Pages or domains misses the infrastructure layer, pressuring Facebook toward network-level detection like what surfaced in its own troll-farm report.
- Advertisers and political clients gain evidence that disinformation-for-hire was a commercial service, which pushes due-diligence requirements onto agencies and media buyers who previously treated reach numbers at face value.
Third-order effects
- If operators keep coming forward, influence campaigns shift from deniable black-box work to a documented industry with traceable supply chains — strengthening the case for regulation of political micro-targeting and platform liability for amplified propaganda.
- The deeper structural point matches Facebook's internal finding that 75% of troll-farm-reached users never followed the Pages: recommendation and Group mechanics themselves become the battleground, making feed design rather than bad-actor removal the durable fix.
The trend: Influence operations are being revealed end-to-end — from paid contractors like Willis to troll-farm scale on Facebook's own metrics — pushing the industry toward treating disinformation as measurable infrastructure rather than isolated bad actors.