Wedgewood Polls called the deception a “social experiment” after investigators exposed its fabricated data

Major US news outlets amplified fabricated election polls showing gains by Democrats, giving a bogus months-old polling operation national credibility before investigators exposed its invented data.

Wedgewood Polls, which appeared in June, secured coverage from publications including Newsweek, the Daily Beast, and The Hill. Its surveys also entered polling databases maintained by the New York Times, election analyst Nate Silver, and other prominent aggregators.

On Tuesday, however, after researchers at election analysis website FiftyPlusOne confronted it, Wedgewood admitted that almost all its surveys were fake.…