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Facebook has now prevented pages that repeatedly spread fake news from advertising on its website.
Under Facebook’s rules, advertisers are not allowed to run ads that link to false stories, but this new update takes the ban a notch higher, by entirely banning such pages that sell fake content from advertising at all.
How will it be done?
The social media giant will be using third party fact-checking organisations to flag the stories that are false.
In a blog post Facebook said the move was done keeping in mind the problem of distribution of fake news, and now will curb those pages that keep sharing such content.
It also mentioned that in the past there have been instances where pages used Facebook ads to build their audience, after which they have started distributing false news all the more.
By changing the ad policy , Facebook makes it harder for such companies to attract that audience.
Easy access to online ad revenue, increased political polarization, and the popularity of social media, primarily the Facebook's news feed, have all been implicated in the spread of fake news (Pic Courtesy: Reuters)
Facebook isn’t specifying the exact numbers of disputed links a Page can share before it gets blocked — as the company doesn’t want people to try to game the system — but has said that “a repeated pattern of misinformation” will prompt the move.
However, if they stop sharing the fake content, these pages may be able to run ads again.
The update has been labelled by Facebook as a “move to disrupt the economic incentives” that motivate people to create, endorse and share, thus making fake news viral.
Previously, the social media giant had made updates so that people see fewer posts and ads in their News Feed that link to low-quality pages, and also took measures to reduce cloaking, so that links that have been clicked on open the related content only.
The social media giant is also employing those third party organisations that comply with Poynter’s Code of Principles and will be using reports from the community and other flagged posts, and send these posts to these organisations.
In recent update on August 3, they also gave out that they will be showing stories below the original post in Related Articles, in case there has been an update where a story has been reviewed by a fact-checker.
Facebook has broken up its fight against fake news into three buckets: disrupting economic incentives, building new products, and helping people make informed decisions.
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