This could make the internet a Better place. Next Up: Getting rid of the Haters!
Originally shared by +Eli Fennell
Google and Facebook Leveraging Ad Revenue Against Fake News Sites
Search and Social Titans Google and Facebook, both of which have received criticism (Facebook especially) for helping spread 'fake' political news online during the 2016 election cycle, have both announced additional steps to prevent fake news websites from generating ad revenue via their services (AdSense and the Facebook Audience Network).
While Google's Search Engine (as well as its news aggregator Google News) is generally good at keeping fake news from ranking high in Search Results (though not quite perfect), Facebook has faced more serious criticism for the propagation of fake news being shared by its users, and this move actually will do little-to-nothing to help that (especially with CEO Mark Zuckerberg vehemently in denial that the problem even exists). In addition, Google and Facebook aren't the only services these sites can use to earn advertising revenue, so this won't likely shut any of them down.
Nonetheless, it is worth giving credit to both companies for clarifying their ad service policies which, it should be noted, were always meant to be applied to fake news sites anyways, and thereby giving purveyors of fake news one less monetary incentive to do so.
Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake-News Sites Google plans to ban fake-news websites from using AdSense, its ad-selling software—a sign that technology companies are moving to address a growing controversy about misinformation on the internet.
