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from the no-more-profits-from-false-prophets dept.
Google and Facebook finally announced steps to tackle fake news on their respective platforms this week following increasing pressure from critics eager to halt the flow of falsehoods online.
Both companies said they will prohibit fake news websites from advertising on their platforms, thus reducing the exposure of such articles to the public while also starving the companies of an important source of advertising income.
The move comes after the companies received a wave of criticism over its role in propagating misinformation, particularly in this election cycle in which many observed that a bitter partisan war was potentially worsened by polarizing news sources touting untrue assertions. While the technology companies have in the past been hesitant to mediate the flow of news, this change might signal a change in thought as they come to grip with the real-life implications of lackluster surveillance on their platforms.
Wrongthink will not be permitted, citizens.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Friday November 18 2016, @11:36AM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years, until they were called out for it by Louder with Crowder when they paid Facebook to advertise their articles and they did the opposite and suppressed them. Now they can continue that agenda by labeling it “Fake News.” Nice scam they got going, almost as good as the apple store.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday November 18 2016, @10:59PM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years
On the other hand, the left can't meme, and I "liked" about 5000 memes over the course of the campaign.
The primary result is 10% of my friends came out as a step or two short of 1488 including some folks I never would have guessed, and maybe 5% occasionally posted what the left thinks are memes but they mostly sucked, disinfo crap from content farms, mostly. "The world is absolutely starved for love" and stuff along the lines of if only we call white people stupid and ignorant one more time THEN they'll vote for us. Which worked really well LOL. Meanwhile countering her 5 low energy posts I liked about 50 rare pepes where at least 10 were LOL funny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:25AM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years,
Found the problem! You are wrongly assuming there is such a thing as "right wing news"! That is the "fake news" we are all talking about! News is just news, facts, stuff that is true. "Right wing news", if there could be such a thing, is just what the right wing wishes were the news, but is not, so it equates to "fake news". Do you understand, now? I could repeat. As Stephen Colbert said, reality has a well know liberal bias, and that bias is otherwise called, "reality", also known as "truth". So, I want you, illiterate and uneducated right winger, to go out and do something stupid, like discriminate against one of your fellow citizens because of one of your idiotic "right wing" values. Do it right now, because Trump won! Yeeee hahhhh! Of course, such behavior is illegal, and so we will be able to identify you, arrest you, incarcerate you, and spit on your stupid racist ass because you were too stupid to recognize that "right wing news" is not news. So act out! Do it now! Although it doesn't really matter, because this is not going to change. Discrimination is against the law, and will always be, no matter who is president. Feel lucky, punk?
Well, do ya?