One of the major problems with Google AdSense is the fact that without knowing, Google has accepted several fake news site to its network, and this has caused for a lot of misinformation across the web. However, it would seem Google is finally ready to act and remove these websites for good.
Fake News And The U.S. Election
This move from Google has come at a time when the tech industry is being blamed for not doing enough to curtail fake news and hoaxes during the U.S. 2016 election. Fake news tend to go viral easier than real news, and as such, we can see the reason why they are so prevalent on social networks.
Fake news have been happening long before the U.S. election, but it would seem as if Silicon Valley allowed it. The popularity of the medium makes for a lot of money to be made by the likes of Google and others through their ad program, but things have changed.
"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 to Reuters.
Google already prevents its AdSense program from supporting sites with violent intent or sexual behavior, but some might say it took too long for the company to travel down this path.
It should be noted that Google did not talk about fake news and hoaxes appearing in the results on its search platform. That's another problem, but one is hoping that by blocking these websites from having access to AdSense, the money will stop flowing, and they will simply go out of business.
Then again, we should know by now that nothing is that easy, but it's a start. Before the U.S. election, teens in Macedonia were duping political followers in the U.S. with several fake news websites, and they made a lot of money from advertisement.
To further prove Google has failed to handle fake news, a recent search for the final election numbers shows a fake news website at the top of the query. It's interesting an election was needed to force Google to act.
Facebook Fake News
As for Facebook, the company had developed a tool designed to locate fake news on its social media platform. However, the company decided not to deploy the tool due to the possibilities it could have come under fire from certain political groups.
On the other hand, CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is denying that his company had any role in influencing the U.S. election, but that might not be enough for some.
