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Fake news is a type of hoax published in news media with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically. If often employs eye-catching headlines or entirely fabricated news-stories in order to increase readership and online sharing through social media. Profit is made in a similar fashion to clickbait and relies on ad-revenue generated regardless of the veracity of the published stories. Easy access to ad-revenue, increased political polarization and the ubiquity of the Facebook newsfeed have been implicated in the spread of fake news. Anonymously hosted websites lacking known publishers have also been implicated, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake news for slander. Fake news is similar to the concept of yellow journalism and political propaganda, frequently employing the same strategies used by early 20th century penny presses.

In late 2016 fake news gained notoriety following the uptick in news-content in the Facebook newsfeed, and its prevalence on the micro-blogging site Twitter. With a large portion of Americans using Facebook or Twitter to receive news, in combination with increased political polarization, filter bubbles, the tendency for readers to mainly read headlines - fake news was implicated in influencing the 2016 American presidential election. Fake news saw higher sharing on Facebook than legitimate news stories, which analysts explained was because fake news often panders to expectations or is otherwise more exciting than legitimate news. Fake news is often spread through the use of fake news websites, specializing in made up attention-grabbing news, while often impersonating widely known news sources in order to gain credibility. Fake news items have occasionally spread from such sites to more well-established news-sites resulting in scandals including "Pizzagate".

The origin of fake news is disputed, with accounts claiming it is part of a coordinated Russian propaganda effort aimed at the West. Hillary Clinton was a prime target of fake news during her 2016 presidential candidacy, and it has been claimed that her loss can be blamed on fake news. Following Donald Trump' s election it has been suggested that Angela Merkel has become the new primary target of fake news in the run-up to the 2017 German federal election. While the Facebook newsfeed has been heavily implicated in the spread of fake news, and the resulting effects of fake news – Facebook itself initially denied this characterization. In the aftermath of the American election and the run-up to the German election Facebook has begun labeling inaccurate news together with and warning users of fake news.

Definition
Fake news has been defined as news which is "completely made up and designed to deceive readers to maximise traffic and profit". News satire is a similar concept but does not strictly fall under this definition.