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Facebook Pages Spreading Fake News Won't Be Able To Buy Ads (techcrunch.com) 474

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Facebook says it's taking another step against Pages that share fabricated news stories. The company has already been working with outside fact-checkers like Snopes and the AP to flag inaccurate news stories. (These aren't supposed to be stories that are disputed for reasons of opinion or partisanship, but rather outright hoaxes and lies.) It also says that when a story is marked as disputed, the link can can no longer be promoted through Facebook ads. The next step, which the company is announcing today, involves stopping Pages that regularly share these stories from buying any Facebook ads at all, regardless of whether or not the ad includes a disputed link. In this case, Leathern said blocking ad-buying is meant to change the economic incentives. Facebook is concerned that "there are Pages posting this information that are using Facebook Ads to build audiences" to spread false news. By changing the ad policy, Facebook makes it harder for companies to attract that audience.
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Facebook Pages Spreading Fake News Won't Be Able To Buy Ads

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @07:34PM (#55100353)
    Now there is something I would have never expected. Facebook a real world news source.

    Going to get really interesting in a year or 2. Can Facebook be a real news source and the Epicenter of the Zuck for President Universe.
  • by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @07:38PM (#55100369)

    And any valid potlical opinion 'people' might disagree with will be labeled 'extremist', 'alt-right', 'racist', 'inciting hatred', or simply 'nazi', and disappeared, no matter if it is actually true or not. And whoever controls the censors gets to decide what is true and what is not.

    • by DevilM ( 191311 ) <devilm@@@devilm...com> on Monday August 28, 2017 @08:03PM (#55100475) Homepage

      That does sound concerning... Of course, you have to wonder where all the cries of fake news would lead. The problem with weaponizing news is that it can be turned against you.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Bs, news have always been weaponized, or since the invention of printing press at least. All the news are in a sense fake. So labelling and selecting any of them is just plain old Censorship. Pass your own war propaganda, censor the Huns or Peanuts or the Ruski.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )

      You are, of course, correct... but the simple reality is that the masses are simply too ignorant and/or lazy to care about whether or not something that they are being told is true enough to perform their own filtering to tell fact from fiction, which is, of course, the ideal.

      Censoring is, unfortunately, the lesser of two evils when the alternative is disinformation being widely spread as factual when that disinformation starts to cause measurable harm to society. The instances of this happening are to

    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      And any valid potlical opinion

      RTFA. This is a discussion about facts, not opinions.
    • by doctorvo ( 5019381 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @09:06PM (#55100755)

      Well, the definition of "alt-right" is evidently "anybody who didn't vote for Hillary". That's because in the minds of Democrats, Trump was so awful that even decent Republicans should have come around and voted for her, as much of the Republican establishment and conservative dutifully did.

      Of course, that makes about 3/4 of US voters "alt-right".

      Good luck trying to win the next election, Democrats or establishment Republicans!

      • by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        I can only speak for myself but from my experience and point of view, the alt-right and alt-left appear to be the extremes of both groups. As you move center, you find the next group that'll vote R or D no matter what the platform. Too much nonsense and there's a good chance they'll stay home. Continuing you find people who are one major and maybe a few minor issue voters. Most likely vote R or D but should the respective person be too light on the major and heavy on a minor, they most likely will not vote.

        • I can only speak for myself but from my experience and point of view, the alt-right and alt-left appear to be the extremes of both groups

          There is no "alt-left"; the left is what it has always been: socialists, progressives, fascists, and communists (and don't bother trying to argue that fascists aren't leftists, they are).

          The "alt-right" is simply a term invented by leftists for people who aren't willing to go along with the Washington elites. That includes a huge number of moderates, independents, and poli

      • fake numbers: 46% of US voted for Trump. Not 3/4.

        In fact, Hillary got more voters. Real voters, not "fantasy illegal votes".

      • by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @07:31AM (#55102231)

        Well, the definition of "alt-right" is evidently "anybody who didn't vote for Hillary".

        Wrong, quoting Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
        "The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loosely defined group of people with far-right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in favor of white nationalism. White supremacist[1] Richard Spencer initially promoted the term in 2010 in reference to a movement centered on white nationalism, and did so according to the Associated Press to disguise overt racism, white supremacism, and neo-Nazism."

        Alt-right was a term invented by racists to hide the fact they're racist. It's little wonder that alt-right has become a byword for racism and other forms of bigotry used by the far-right.

        Trying to change the definition of terms is a tactic favoured by extremists in an attempt to disguise what is ultimately a very distasteful philosophy to most people. The only people who think that Alt-Right refers to anyone who "didn't vote for hillary" are people who are extremely deluded. Also adding to your delusion is the idea that 3/4 voters voted for Trump... when it was Hillary that won the popular vote.

        Your kind of revisionism is exactly why normal people, whether they be conservative or liberal, detest the alt-right. You're attempting to outright lie to us, then telling us anyone contradicting you is oppressing you. There's not point in getting upset that no-one outside your echo chamber is buying your absurdities.

        • by doctorvo ( 5019381 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @10:26AM (#55102963)

          Wrong, quoting Wikipedia:

          Dearest, I'm telling you about the way that Democrats are using the term today.

          The only people who think that Alt-Right refers to anyone who "didn't vote for hillary" are people who are extremely deluded.

          That's the way Democrats are using the term.

          Trying to change the definition of terms is a tactic favoured by extremists in an attempt to disguise what is ultimately a very distasteful philosophy to most people.

          Oh, you're so right. Just read Alinsky.

    • by geekymachoman ( 1261484 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @09:09PM (#55100765)

      > And any valid potlical opinion 'people' might disagree with will be labeled 'extremist', 'alt-right', 'racist', 'inciting hatred', or simply 'nazi', and disappeared, no matter if it is actually true or not. And whoever controls the censors gets to decide what is true and what is not.

      It'll not work because every year more and more people are getting pissed off at those that label everything they disagree with as racist, alt right, nazi, etc, and there's already a number of them that you cannot ignore, and this number is growing.

      It grew to a point where these people elected president who's a bit of an idiot, out of spite. They say they believe in Trump, but in reality... they just really dislike political establishment, the left, CNN, Clinton's and their breed. More they call people nazis, more quasi anti-fascist groups like Antifa, or whiny racists like BLM that call everybody else racist (even black people that don't agree with them), more power they give to those they oppose.

      All attempts to quiet down, censor, and beat other people because their different opinions will eventually die.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @09:22PM (#55100833)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28, 2017 @07:43PM (#55100383)

    It's easy to see where this is heading. Next will be the deletion of Facebook pages that spread so-called fake news. Or anything Facebook finds objectionable.

    In the recent past, the simple work-around would be buy a domain name and link to such content hosted somewhere. However, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, Network Solutions, and others have now taken it upon themselves to, in effect, censor content by deleting the domain name associated with any site they find objectionable.

    Interesting how many internet neutrality proponents are all for it except when it concerns content and expression they don't like. Seems to me that domain name registrars, DNS providers, co-location facilities, ISPs, communication providers, and network access points should all be considered common carrier utilities and not permitted to arbitrarily block usage nor content unless dictated so by law.

  • by turkeydance ( 1266624 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @07:48PM (#55100405)
    win-win
  • Now they'll get even less traffic.

    • Now they'll get even less traffic.

      Well they'll still have their ad revenue, since they're not having their ads blocked because it's fake news.

  • In this thread (Score:5, Informative)

    by fibonacci8 ( 260615 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @08:18PM (#55100563)

    Conservatives upset that belief can be dismissed on the same basis as was used to submit it.

    Libertarians upset that "privatizing truth" is what the free market decided upon.

    Liberals upset that moral relativism can be fact checked.

    The only winning move is not to use facebook.

    • The only winning move is not to use facebook.

      Well in that case, check and mate. ;)

    • Re:In this thread (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @07:49AM (#55102297) Homepage Journal

      There is another winning move. It's not an easy one to make and occasionally goes wrong, but it's not impossible.

      Filter the unquestionably, demonstrably fake news. Forget all the questionable or biased stuff, just focus on the total bullshit that has no basis in reality. Pizzagate, Brietbart articles about churches on fire that photographic evidence incontrovertibly proves to be false, blog posts claiming that the Clintons murdered dozens of people, Euro myths that have been widely debunked since the 1990s.

      Set the bar high. Require multiple reputable sources debunking the stories. Fake news is a hot topic, these days you won't have trouble finding them. And then don't ban the speech, just de-monetize it and put a note saying that reputable sources dispute it with links to their debunkings.

      Even then, it will occasionally fail, but you can be sure that many reputable news sources will notice and make damn sure that the truth does get out.

      If you plan to disagree with this, please include examples where this has been tried and it failed systematically.

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @08:36PM (#55100649)
    Serious question.
  • by doctorvo ( 5019381 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @09:00PM (#55100739)

    The company has already been working with outside fact-checkers like Snopes and the AP to flag inaccurate news stories. (These aren't supposed to be stories that are disputed for reasons of opinion or partisanship, but rather outright hoaxes and lies.)

    A bit of unintentional humor there, I see.

  • I've used snopes.com many times but found it behind most of the time. Just today linked from fark.com: "Health professionals report cases where people put sunscreen on their eyeballs to watch eclipse" http://www.foxnews.com/health/... [foxnews.com]

    sunscreen +eclipse site:snopes.com - Nada on all variations.

  • People telling lies about politics won't be able to make money from people telling lies about their products.
  • What about sites like The Onion [theonion.com] or Ironic Times [ironictimes.com]?

  • by CaptainDork ( 3678879 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @09:52PM (#55100947)

    ... fake news is easy to identify. It's not a matter of bias, it's a matter of fact.

    Either something happened or it didn't.

    It's not hard.

    However, why in tarnation is anybody getting their real goddam news on fucking Facebook?

    That's the question.

    • by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

      Facebook is basically crazy shit my mom sends me. Back in the 90's when I got nonsense from friends and family, I'd respond with correct information and eventually send them to snopes. In pretty much all cases, these people eventually stopped sending me this stuff. Even if I bail, they continue to recycle nonsense to their friends like a fake new hurricane without levees to stop them.

      [John]

  • by knorthern knight ( 513660 ) on Monday August 28, 2017 @11:07PM (#55101207)

    Bill Clinton feared the open internet in 1995

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-j... [breitbart.com]

    > Three years before Matt Drudge changed the world and how news
    > would be consumed, President Bill Clinton's White House feared
    > that the Internet was allowing average citizens, especially conservatives,
    > to bypass legacy gatekeepers and access information that had
    > previously been denied to them by the mainstream press.

    Hillary Clinton whining about an internet "Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function"

    http://www.freerepublic.com/fo... [freerepublic.com]

    Apparently CNN (Clinton News Network) wasn't winning the battle for hearts and minds, so the Democrats wanted to destroy Breitbart website... Hillary Campaign Vows To Destroy Opposition Website
    http://dailycaller.com/2016/08... [dailycaller.com]

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