Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites

Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites

Companies address spread of misinformation after false news stories became an issue during the presidential election

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Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS


By JACK NICAS and
DEEPA SEETHARAMAN
Updated Nov. 15, 2016 12:13 a.m. ET 112 COMMENTS

Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced steps to prevent fake-news websites from generating revenue through their ad-selling services, signs that technology companies are moving to address a growing controversy about misinformation on the internet.

A Facebook spokesman said it will explicitly ban sites that traffic in fake news from using the Facebook Audience Network, saying they fall under the category of misleading, illegal or deceptive sites already barred. The audience network places ads on other websites and mobile apps.

Earlier Monday, Google said it plans to prevent Google ads from being placed “on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose” of the website. The policy would cover sites that distribute false news, a Google spokeswoman said.

False news stories, particularly those that spread widely on Facebook, became an issue during the recent presidential election. Google experienced its own mishap on Sunday when a story on a right-wing blog erroneously stating Donald Trump won the popular vote appeared atop some Google search results.

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THE TRUMP TRANSITION

Both Facebook and Google appeared to be reacting to critics who have urged tech companies to try to prevent the spread of such misinformation, which critics say hurt political discourse and sharpened divisions among American voters.

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“While implied, we have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news,” the Facebook spokesman said. “We vigorously enforce our policies and take swift action against sites and apps that are found to be in violation. Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance.”

Facebook’s move doesn’t address the fake news that appears in users’ news feeds, the focus of criticism of the social network. The Facebook spokesman couldn’t specify the signals its software uses to identify fake news sites, or when it will also ask people to review the sites. He also couldn’t say why Facebook couldn’t use similar technology to stamp out fake news on its news feed.

Facebook has denied that fake news on its site affected the outcome of the election. In a post on Saturday, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said fake news accounts for less than 1% of global content on Facebook and said there are false stories with both conservative and liberal leanings.

Google largely had avoided such controversy, in part because it lacks a popular social-media site where stories are shared among users. Moreover, Google’s search algorithm favors webpages that are well-designed and are linked to by other established sites, which tends to disfavor fake news.
Google’s AdSense program, which helps website operators place ads on their sites, is the most popular tool for monetizing websites and helps fund many fake-news sites.

Google has long blocked ads that misrepresent what they market, and blocks AdSense from sites that promote hate speech or include pornography or violent content.

The moves by Google and Facebook will crimp revenue at many fake-news sites, but it likely won’t obliterate the small industry of misinformation in some corners of the internet.

Others offer similar ad-selling services, though they may not be as lucrative for publishers as AdSense.

On Sunday, Google was pulled into the debate concerning fake news on the web when a blog post on 70news.wordpress.com highlighting incorrect election results appeared atop some Google search results. In fact, Hillary Clinton leads Mr. Trump by nearly 700,000 votes, according to Google’s own election data, though Mr. Trump was elected president by amassing a majority in the Electoral College.

“We clearly didn’t get it right, but we are continually working to improve our algorithms,” a Google spokeswoman said via email. The 70news.wordpress site said its source for the popular-vote count was a tweet by another person. Efforts to reach the website’s operator were unsuccessful.

The little-known blog’s prominent position in some search results appeared to be a rare occurrence. An analysis by data journalists at the University of Maryland showed that the vast majority of news stories included in the “In the news” box in Google search results come from established news organizations.

CNN and the New York Times together accounted for about 44% of the links in those boxes for searches of “Hillary Clinton” and “Donald Trump” between May 31 and July 9, according to the analysis, which examined 5,604 links. In just four cases, the analysis found stories from fringe-news sites Breitbart News and InfoWars.

On Monday, after several news organizations wrote about the 70news link in Google search results, such queries began showing a so-called info box from Google on election data atop the results. The link to 70news also was displaced by established news sites reporting on the earlier link.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-p...web-1479159867

Today's Internet: All the fake NEWS that's fit to publish

If Google and Facebook wanted to target fake news shouldn't they be removing the monetization from Fox News, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and ABC and include the New York Times and Washington Post all of which ran fake polls with fake predictions that Hillary Clinton was going to win by a landslide?

W

Tue Nov 15, 2016 | 9:53am EST

Google, Facebook move to restrict ads on fake news sites

http://s2.reutersmedia.net/resources...=LYNXMPECAE0CD

The Google logo adorns the entrance of Google Germany headquarters in Hamburg, Germany July 11, 2016.REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen


By Julia Love and Kristina Cooke | SAN FRANCISCO
Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Monday announced measures aimed at halting the spread of "fake news" on the internet by targeting how some purveyors of phony content make money: advertising.

Google said it is working on a policy change to prevent websites that misrepresent content from using its AdSense advertising network, while Facebook updated its advertising policies to spell out that its ban on deceptive and misleading content applies to fake news.

The shifts comes as Google, Facebook and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) face a backlash over the role they played in the U.S. presidential election by allowing the spread of false and often malicious information that might have swayed voters toward Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The issue has provoked a fierce debate within Facebook especially, with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg insisting twice in recent days that the site had no role in influencing the election.

Facebook's steps are limited to its ad policies, and do not target fake news sites shared by users on their news feeds.

"We do not integrate or display ads in apps or sites containing content that is illegal, misleading or deceptive, which includes fake news," Facebook said in a statement, adding that it will continue to vet publishers to ensure compliance.

Google's move similarly does not address the issue of fake news or hoaxes appearing in Google search results. That happened in the last few days, when a search for 'final election count' for a time took users to a fake news story saying Trump won the popular vote. Votes are still being counted, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton showing a slight lead.

Nor does Google suggest that the company has moved to a mechanism for rating the accuracy of particular articles.

Rather, the change is aimed at assuring that publishers on the network are legitimate and eliminating financial incentives that appear to have driven the production of much fake news.

"Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," Google said in a statement.

The company did not detail how it would implement or enforce the new policy.

MACEDONIA NEWS
AdSense, which allows advertisers to place text ads on the millions of websites that are part of Google's network, is a major source of money for many publishers.

A report in BuzzFeed News last month showed how tiny publishers in Macedonia were creating websites with fake news - much of it denigrating Clinton - which were widely shared on Facebook.

That sharing in turn led people to click on links which brought them to the Macedonian websites, which could then make money on the traffic via Google's AdSense.

Facebook has been widely blamed for allowing the spread of online misinformation, most of it pro-Trump, but Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that Facebook influenced the outcome of the election or that fake news is a major problem on the service.

"Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic," he wrote in a blog post on Saturday. "Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes."

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Google has long had rules for its AdSense program, barring ads from appearing next to pornography or violent content. Work on the policy update announced on Monday began before the election, a Google spokeswoman said.

The company uses a combination of humans and artificial intelligence to review sites that apply to be a part of AdSense, and sites continue to be monitored after they are accepted, a former Google employee who worked on ad systems said. Google's artificial intelligence systems learn from sites that have been removed from the program, speeding the removal of similar sites.

The issue of fake news is critical for Google from a business standpoint, as many advertisers do not want their brands to be touted alongside dubious content. Google must constantly hone its systems to try to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous publishers, the former employee said.

Google has not said whether it believes its search algorithms, or its separate system for ranking results in the Google News service, also need to be modified to cope with the fake news issue.

Fil Menczer, a professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University who has studied the spread of misinformation on social media, said Google's move with AdSense was a positive step.

"One of the incentives for a good portion of fake news is money," he said. "This could cut the income that creates the incentive to create the fake news sites."
However, he cautioned that detecting fake news sites was not easy. "What if it is a site with some real information and some fake news? It requires specialized knowledge and having humans (do it) doesn't scale," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-al...-idUSKBN1392MM

Facebook promoting fake news isn’t the problem – you are

The truth is that Facebook gets the blame because it’s an easy target and nobody understands how its ‘secretive’ algorithms actually work

• Dina Rickman
• @dinarickman
• 28 minutes ago
• 1 comment

Trump hailed the power of Facebook after his election victory AP

BREAKING: the internet. In the seven days it has taken the world to digest the results of one of the closest – and most controversial – American elections of all time, the blame game has begun. And for many of those seeking to understand, explain or excuse Donald Trump’s win, the answer is simple: it was all Facebook’s fault.

Let’s look at the evidence. Facebook has said in the past that some of the news on it is fake, Trump himself hailed the power of Facebook after his victory, and Clinton’s campaign called out the social network after their loss, telling Politico “a publisher with a record of making stuff up is not likely to rank that highly on Google, and the equivalent ought to be the case on Facebook”. Never mind that if you Google “final election results”, the first result at time of writing is a fake site that claimed Trump won the popular vote – or that a man with 14.7 million Facebook likes might find it a useful tool for talking people.

Then there’s the social media bubble, the argument that people only interact on social networks with those who believe the same things as them – and, due to secretive algorithms, are only shown posts from people who think the same things for evermore.

This doesn’t even come close to explaining why so many voters switched their allegiance from Obama to Trump in 2016 – or why I’d be willing to bet you, and almost everyone you know, has been shocked by the political views of a friend or acquaintance that popped up in your news feed. And if you really want to talk about social bubbles and biased conversation, when was the last time you invited your Ukip-voting uncle to the pub with your left-wing mates? In real life friendship groups rarely spend time arguing about politics. The pub tends to be a case of confirmation bias, and on social networks that’s the same.

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The truth is that Facebook gets the blame because it is a very easy target. No one quite understands how the algorithm that decides what posts will go in your news feed works (that’s why we get to call it “secretive”) and the employees who do won’t tell you, which means you can write pretty much what you want about it without being publicly and embarrassingly corrected. No one blamed Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of printing press, for the phone-hacking scandal, but the culture of silence around the Facebook news feed makes calling out Mark Zuckerberg that much easier.

As the largest social network in the world, Facebook is also the largest network for sharing news in the world – something which scares much of the media.

Rather than celebrating the tool which allows their journalism to be read more widely than ever before, many in the newspaper industry see Facebook as public enemy number one and are insulted that they have to rely on it to help increase their readership when Mark Zuckerberg has publicly said the social network is a tech, not a media, company. They don’t like what they see on Facebook news feeds, and rather than use the power of their organisations to produce new content to change that, they spend time resenting it.

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• 29show all

That’s not the only force at play: We know readers most probably use Facebook and are thus slightly more likely to click on articles about it, whether the coverage is positive or negative. That brings us to fake news, a problem very few people understand the magnitude of. Facebook first released public stats on the matter in weekend post from Mark Zuckerberg, where he said “more than 99 per cent” of the site’s content is accurate – and the one per cent of fake news he has identified isn’t only political. Hoaxes are as old as human nature – and ALL social media (I’m looking at you, Tumblr and Weibo) and search engines (that means you, Google) can help spread them. That’s a point worth repeating: those who call out Facebook for fake news, for example, tend to be curiously silent on Twitter promoting articles for “natural” cancer cures that are apparently stronger than chemotherapy.
As those of us who have ever watched Question Time in the age of social media will know, we live in the age of hyper-scrutiny. No dodgy stat or untrue fact uttered by a politician can stand a second without being checked and debunked in some corner of the internet. The implicit message from those crowing about the problem of fake news is simple: you think the electorate is so foolish or your preferred candidate so weak that a link from girlsjustwannahaveguns.com has the power to change an election. And that means something other than Facebook is broken.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a7418941.html

Realtime Coverage

Social-Media Companies Forced to Confront Misinformation and Harassment Wall Street Journal - ‎5 hours ago‎ Ongoing complaints about misinformation and hate speech on the internet are forcing social-media companies to confront whether they need to take more responsibility for the content on their sites. Twitter Inc. on Tuesday said it would let users block ... https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vpebPSq6A8U/0.jpg ABC News https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FVvVUMthcME/0.jpg YouTube https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JYUoAc0THXo/0.jpg NewsBeat Social https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...90nVrlbb5VnW8A Wall Street Journal http://www.alipac.us/image/jpeg;base...zx7gmlSpUcmf/Z CNBC https://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...oqZ1W_B9YzCv2s CBS News https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:..._8UxExRNCw0Mws ZDNet https://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...OLsstvKjBQhvnk ABC News https://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...h51OWhx52uvLcs The Atlantic https://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...ryRZzXYoiJBY6A Christian Science Monitor http://www.alipac.us//t2.gstatic.com...XcsPGbCITH6FHw NPR http://www.alipac.us//t2.gstatic.com...rIJP6NocPmTrTw The Boston Globe http://www.alipac.us//t3.gstatic.com...FAQDZ_CDGVceoM Boing Boing http://www.alipac.us//t2.gstatic.com...2UsIsIl5mn-i1s New York Daily News http://www.alipac.us//t0.gstatic.com...NIDUX1vPGyAGxg Forbes Facebook, Google announce new policies to fight fake news WDEF News 12 - ‎12 minutes ago‎ Facebook and Google ban fake news sites from generating ad revenue on platforms MobileSyrup.com - ‎13 minutes ago‎ Facebook, Google announce new policies to fight fake news CBS News - ‎1 hour ago‎ Facebook, Google Crack Down on Fake News Advertising NBCNews.com - ‎1 hour ago‎ Google, Facebook move to restrict ads on fake news sites WBCO - ‎1 hour ago‎ The Problem With Facebook Runs Much Deeper Than Fake News Slate Magazine - ‎2 hours ago‎ Facebook is under fire for spreading falsehoods. But it's getting away with a bigger lie. By Will Oremus. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a town hall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in 2015. Stephen Lam/Reuters. In the wake of ... Renegade Facebook employees form task force to battle fake news CNBC - ‎5 hours ago‎ The group is hoping to challenge the position by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the platform has no responsibility to address the issue following the election of Donald Trump. Sheera Frankel. 5 Hours Ago Buzzfeed. SHARES. show chapters ... Google and Facebook ban fake news sites from using ad platforms Politico - ‎4 hours ago‎ With help from Nancy Scola and Margaret Harding McGill. GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK SQUEEZE FAKE NEWS SITES — Both tech companies announced Monday evening that they would ban fake news sites from using their respective advertising platforms, ... Media's New 'Powers That Be' Fortune - ‎4 hours ago‎ Power Sheet – November 15, 2016. Who are America's media powers today? The election has put that question at the center of the news, but the answer applies far more broadly. For any leader in any field, understanding today's most influential media ... Does the internet have a fake-news problem? CNET - ‎6 hours ago‎ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has tried to downplay Facebook's role in the election. James Martin/CNET. Donald Trump won the popular vote. The Clinton Foundation bought $137 million worth of illegal arms and ammunition. An FBI agent associated with ... Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites Wall Street Journal - ‎15 hours ago‎ Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google announced steps to prevent fake-news websites from generating revenue through their ad-selling services, signs that technology companies are moving to address a growing controversy about misinformation on the ... Facebook staff mount secret push to tackle fake news, reports say The Guardian - ‎6 hours ago‎ Scrutiny over Facebook's treatment of editorial content has been intensifying for months, reflecting the site's unrivaled power and influence in distributing news alongside everything else its users share on the site. Photograph: Patricia de Melo ... The Facebook 'fake news' scandal is important – but regulation isn't the answer The Independent - ‎1 hour ago‎ It is perhaps rather apt that the first series of the American version of The Apprentice – starring one Donald J Trump – first aired just a month before the launch of another staple of the modern media age, Facebook, in January 2004. Now, 16 years on ... Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial New York Times - ‎11 hours ago‎ CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Donald J. Trump's supporters were probably heartened in September, when, according to an article shared nearly a million times on Facebook, the candidate received an endorsement from Pope Francis. Their opinions on Hillary ... Facebook promoting fake news isn't the problem – you are The Independent - ‎2 hours ago‎ BREAKING: the internet. In the seven days it has taken the world to digest the results of one of the closest – and most controversial – American elections of all time, the blame game has begun. And for many of those seeking to understand, explain or ... Click and elect: how fake news helped Donald Trump win a real election The Guardian - ‎Nov 14, 2016‎ The 'alt-right' (aka the far right) ensnared the electorate using false stories on social media. But tech companies seem unwilling to admit there's a problem • Become a Guardian supporter or make a contribution. Mark Zuckerberg. 'Mark Zuckerberg said ... 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'I write fake news that gets shared on Facebook'

FROM THE TOPIC LIFE
13 hours ago

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cps..._newspaper.jpg
The creator of a fake news site says there's nothing wrong with what he does.

Chief Reporter (CR), as he calls himself, is being forced to defend the Southend News Network after Facebook announced it was going to do more to tackle made-up news appearing in people's News Feeds.

But he insists people are entertained by his style of news and thinks some media sites are guilty of publishing stories which border on fabrication.

"People read a headline and then don't even bother to check the content before they share it," he's told Newsbeat.

CR says he set up Southend News Network as "a bit of a joke" and as a reaction to the way local stories were covered in his area.

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http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cps...919_medium.jpgThe rise and rise of fake news


He then says he went further, making up stories on whatever were the hot topics of the day.

"It ended up with up to two million views per month. Half the people fall for the stories, the other half are genuinely entertained by what they read," says CR.

It doesn't take much to spot some of the fakes...

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cps...6281_moon2.jpg

But some stories sound incredibly convincing and people share them, spreading what they believe to be the truth.

CR's spoof site, unlike others like the Daily Mash and News Thump, deliberately sounds like it could be a genuine news service.

Anything wrong with that?

"It encourages the reader to really look at what they're going through and think, 'Is this real, is this not real?'" says CR.

"If enough of an electorate are in a frame of mind where they will believe absolutely everything they read on the internet, to a certain extent they have to be prepared to deal with the consequences."

This is a reference to the suggestion that fake news stories may have helped Donald Trump win the US presidential election.

And CR clearly isn't impressed....

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CR believes genuine news sites are just as much to blame.
"They print actual news stories but put such ridiculous spin on them that they border over into fake news," he says.

"If Facebook is going to penalise fake sites, they should also penalise real news sites who I think are guilty of far worse crimes than me."

CR says he's actually helping spark a debate.

"For too long, people have been prepared to accept whatever's been fed to them in terms of news.

"If I put a flashing banner at the top of every story with a warning saying 'this is not real, don't take it at face value', people would still share it and get absolutely outraged. So I don't know what else I could do."

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cps..._toblerone.jpg

Image caption There are some stories that you really, really want to be true

CR admits few things are more satisfying than when a fake story really flies.

His favourite recent example is an article about Southend Pier being sold off to a Chinese shipping company.

The plan involved the pier being demolished to make way for bigger ships.

"I put so many clues in there for people to realise it wasn't real, even down to calling the company Xi Ping Shipping.

"But people just ignored them. It started a massive debate on Facebook."

Then he got a call from a local councillor.

"They told me the amount of interest the story was generating for Southend pier and Southend as a destination meant, in his mind, Southend News Network could only be a good thing for the town."

Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search forbbc_newsbeat

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