Harris denied that there was political motivation behind the fake news. He was only concerned about the maximum profit that he could obtain with these political issues. When asked if he felt guilty about spreading untruths about a presidential candidate, Harris said that since politics was generally made up of exaggerations and half-truths, he hadn’t really done any different to what would normally be the case.
Harris also confirmed that he would have been prepared to go against Trump and promote Clinton with his articles if this tactic had been more lucrative. However, Trump’s supporters proved far more impulsive than Clinton’s, since the Republican candidate’s supporters shared the articles more willingly.
With the story, the political scientist could show his Republican spirit, but for him it was the $20,000 he generated from Google Ads on his website that made it worthwhile. Google, however, quickly withdrew his advertising after realizing what he was up to.
Harris made a costly mistake: he decided to wait. A few days after the election, Google announced it wasn’t going to place any more ads on fake news sites. A few days later the ads had disappeared from Harris’ domains and after conducting a test, an expert reported that his domains were now essentially worthless.
But all was not lost. Harris had added a pop up on the re-activated expired domain, which encouraged visitors to join a (fictitious) 'Stop the Steal' team. The aim was for the users to find out how Clinton manipulated the elections and how to stop them. By doing this, Harris was able to collect 24,000 e-mail addresses. What exactly he plans to do with them, is still unclear.