Category: Fake News, Disinformation and Propaganda

Article

Facebook and Google to block ads on fake news websites | Adnews

Facebook Employees Are In Revolt Over Fake News | Gizmodo

Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites | New York Times

Does the internet have a fake-news problem? | CNet

Google CEO says fake news is a problem and should not be distributed | The Verge

Want to keep fake news out of your newsfeed? College professor creates list of sites to avoid | Los Angeles Times

My Comments

Since Donald Trump gained election victory in the USA, there has been some concern amongst a few of Silicon Valley’s tech companies regarding the existence of “fake news”.

This is typically a story that is presented in order to refer to an actual news event but doesn’t relate to any actual news event. In some cases, such stories a hyped-up versions of an existing news item but in a lot of cases, these stories are built up on rumours.

The existence of Internet-distributed fake news has been of concern amongst journalists especially where newsroom budgets are being cut back and more news publishers and broadcasters are resorting to “rip-and-read” journalism, something previously associated with newscasts provided by music-focused FM radio stations.

Similarly, most of us are using Internet-based news sources as part of our personal news-media options or or only source of news, especially when we are using portable devices like ultraportable laptops, tablets or smartphones as our main Internet terminals for Web browsing.

Silicon Valley also see the proliferation of fake news as a threat to the provision of balanced coverage of news and opinion because they see this as a vehicle for delivering the populist political agenda rather than level-headed intelligent news. This is typically because the headline and copy in “fake news” reports is written in a way to whip up an angry sentiment regarding the topics concerned, thus discouraging further personal research.

But Facebook and Google are tackling this problem initially by turning off the advertising-money tap for fake-news sites. Facebook will apply this to ad-funded apps that work alongside these sites while Google will apply this as a policy for people who sign up to the AdSense online display-ads platform.

There is the issue of what kind of curating exists in the algorithms that list search results or news items on a search-engine or social-media page. It also includes how the veracity of news content is being deemed, even though Google and Facebook are avoiding being in a position where they can be seen as “arbiters of truth”.

The big question that can exist is what other actions could Silicon Valley take to curb the dissemination of fake news beyond just simply having their ad networks turn off the supply of advertising to these sites? This is because the popular search engines are essentially machine-generated indexes of the Web, while the Social Web and the blogosphere are ways where people share links to resources that exist on the Web.

Some people were suggesting the ability for a search engine like Google or a social network site like Facebook to have its user interface “flag” references to known fake-news stories, based on user or other reports. Similarly, someone could write desktop or mobile software like a browser add-on that does this same thing, or simply publish a publicly-available list of known “fake-news” Websites for people to avoid.

This is infact an angle that a US-based college professor had taken where she prepared a Google Docs resource listing the Websites hosting that kind of news, in order to help people clean their RSS newsfeeds of misinformation, with some mainstream online news sources including the New York Magazine providing a link to this resource.

The issue of fake news distributed via the Internet is becoming a real problem, but Silicon Valley is looking at different ways to solve this problem and bring to it the same level of respect that was associated with traditional media.

Previous coverage

Malaysia Airlines air disaster–another event bringing out the online scams

My Comments

Just lately, a disaster that has affected many people has occurred with many casualties in the form of the Nepal earthquake.

But what follows on the tail of these disasters is an avalanche of spam email and flaky social-media posts that offer extra insight or paths to assistance for people who are touched by these events. As well, it is the time when scams pretending to be charity appeals intending to provide aid to the victims of this earthquake also appear on the Internet. It is something I have drawn attention to previously when there was the Malaysian Airlines MH370 air disaster which drew out these scams and am drawing attention to in relation to the latest earthquake. But they lead you to malware or to harvest users’ personal or financial details. In these situations, it pays to think before you click on that link so you are safe with the Net.

Check for legitimate resources that offer information about your relatives’ or friends’ wellbeing and some of these could include Nepalese consulates in your area, the Red Cross or similar services and work with them “from the horse’s mouth”. That means to deal with official websites that are known to the public and are usually published by the media as part of their coverage on the issue.

Facebook does offer a legitimate Safety Check service which comes in to play during civil emergencies. Here, it would identify if one was in an affected geographical area and allow the person to interact with them to know if they are safe and this status would appear in your Facebook Friends’ news feed. For that concerned person, they would be able to check on the News Feed for their relative’s or friend’s status. But be careful of any “fake friends” that appear around the time of this disaster and any post from a friend of yours that isn’t known to be in the area but is out of order should be questioned.

As for charity appeals, most of the media provide information about legitimate fundraising efforts that are taking place so you don’t get fleeced easily.

What to do is to be aware and careful with using the Internet to find details about who is affected by a major event and check with trusted resources.