I am sure you have all heard about the news around Facebook, Google and others cracking down on fake news distribution and monetization. Mid-November, shortly after the election, many went after fake news sites - with good reason. In fact, before election day, Google even did a fact check feature for Google News.
That being said, Google told the New York Times that they are going to crack down on AdSense publishers who distribute fake news. Google's Andrea Faville told the NY Times:
"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," Ms. Faville said. Ms. Faville said that the policy change had been in the works for a while and was not in reaction to the election.
A WebmasterWorld thread has AdSense publishers reacting to this news. Of course, many sites might not do extensive fact checking or may write in a way that is opinionated, which may trigger a ban. Here are some quotes from this thread:
The bigger worry is what happens to legitimate satire?
Will they ban Adwords ads to these sites too? That is taboola like chum bucket ad, eg: "5 things you should never eat" with an image of oozing egg.
The problem isn't the fake news sites. The problem is that large portions of the electorate are rather dumb and don't get their news from reputable sources. I'm not even sure if they know what reputable sources are.
It is a pretty long thread but I have yet to hear of a publisher being banned in the past week or two over fake news. Have you?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
