Digital artist Oli Frost’s latest project explores the potential power of Nice Fake News

Donald Trump didn’t invent the concept of fake news, but the America’s most confused president to date has certainly popularised it. Used to deflect or deny anything that doesn’t directly fit his kaleidoscopic approach to the truths of reality, it has become a handy crutch for the big-bottomed ruler of the free world.

Like most residents of planet Earth, artist and satirist Oli Frost has taken a keen interest in the phrase, and his latest digital project sees him extolling the virtues of what he’s taken to calling “nice fake news,” disseminating it via his new website NFN World News

In Oli’s brave new super-friendly world, blind kittens see string for the first time, traffic is completely eradicated by 2026, and people who recycle live longer. When It’s Nice That asks him what he thinks the long-term ramifications of living in a reality shaped by allegedly fake news, he says, “In the era of fake news it’ll become a lot less important what’s true, and more about what’s useful. If there was a lie that got everyone recycling, that seems like a good lie to tell.”

NFN isn’t Oli’s first internet-based societal exploration; he recently sold all his personal data on eBay (“I saw social media companies had been selling my data to the highest bidder for years, and decided to get in on the money,”) and was also responsible for the absurdly detailed Lifefaker project, which let users buy digital replications of entire lifestyles.

Oli’s determination to do things differently in the digital sphere, while still ensuring there’s a direct link to life outside of the internet, is proof that the medium really is the message. Whether his pro-niceness propaganda infiltrates Trump’s dreaded MSM is another story.