Google Permanently Bans 200 "Fake News" Sites

[1CK1S]

From November to December 2016, we reviewed 550 sites that were suspected of misrepresenting content to users, including impersonating news organizations. We took action against 340 of them for violating our policies, both misrepresentation and other offenses, and nearly 200 publishers were kicked out of our network permanently.

In total, Google took down 1.7 billion ads that they found in violation of their policies in 2016, more than double the 780 million they removed in 2015.

It wasn't just fake news: Google provided the following examples of common policy violations among bad sites in 2016:

We took action on 47,000 sites for promoting content and products related to weight-loss scams.

We took action on more than 15,000 sites for unwanted software and disabled 900,000 ads for containing malware.

And we suspended around 6,000 sites and 6,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, like imitation designer watches.

Some of the more conventional bans were the result of Google adding a policy mid-year prohibiting ads for payday loans, considered predatory. Roughly five million payday loan ads were disabled over the latter six months of 2016. Also among those the removed ads were what Google calls “tabloid cloakers.”

These advertisers run what look like links to news headlines, but when the user clicks, an ad for a product such as a weight loss supplement pops up. Google suspended 1,300 accounts engaged in tabloid cloaking in 2016.

Spencer concludes:

In addition to all the above, we support industry efforts like the Coalition for Better Ads to protect people from bad experiences across the web. While we took down more bad ads in 2016 than ever before, the battle doesn’t end here. As we invest in better detection, the scammers invest in more elaborate attempts to trick our systems. Continuing to find and fight them is essential to protecting people online and ensuring you get the very best from the open web.

Google has not disclosed the list of 200 sites it had permanently banned.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-25/google-permanently-bans-200-fake-news-sites

 

[Max.]

Wonder if this will prevent all these wack threads

 

[babelipsss]

More sites will pop up to replace them with a quickness. Gullible followers will believe anything as long as it's filled with gloom and doom.

 

[SneakDZA]

lol @ just 200.

@1CKS how much you get paid per thread?

 

[1CK1S]

Wonder if this will prevent all these wack threads

Nah

 

[VIBE]

Will satire sites be affected?

 

[dalyricalbandit]

Good

 

[Neophyte Wolfgang]

How come Snopes wasn't shut down?

 

[Lurkristocrat]

Word i might finally stop having to see those "look at precious now after losing 200lbs" ads now smh

 

[fortyacres]

fox news , Alex Jones , Limbaugh and Breitbart gatta go too.

im waiting for facebook to do something.

 

[CeLLaR-DooR]

Glad about the ads but I don't like that Google are decidin' what is and isn't 'fake' news. It's not Google's fault people read bullshit and then don't use the search engine that the idiot is already on to fact check

 

[D. Morgan]

Glad about the ads but I don't like that Google are decidin' what is and isn't 'fake' news. It's not Google's fault people read bullshit and then don't use the search engine that the idiot is already on to fact check

This!!!

 

[BelovedAfeni]

Will satire sites be affected?

Satire or fake news is one in the same

 

[Plutarch]

Will satire sites be affected?

Satire or fake news is one in the same

Not necessarily.

 

[Plutarch]

Glad about the ads but I don't like that Google are decidin' what is and isn't 'fake' news. It's not Google's fault people read bullshit and then don't use the search engine that the idiot is already on to fact check

My sentiments exactly. Google has the right to do whatever it wants, but I can't cosign this. It's a dangerous slippery slope, imo, and it basically amounts to censorship, which I generally don't support. People, i.e. grown-ass adults, should decide what is fake or not and what they want to see and what they don't want to see. We're not that dumb. And if we are, we should be free to be so without being treated like children, which is unfortunately a big trend.

Who decides what's fake news anyway? And why has this "fake news" trend suddenly become so popular now? We've had fake news for quite some time now, and most of it is mainstream news, television and newspaper. Looks like another method of control to me. And people are eating it up.

 

[D. Morgan]

Glad about the ads but I don't like that Google are decidin' what is and isn't 'fake' news. It's not Google's fault people read bullshit and then don't use the search engine that the idiot is already on to fact check

My sentiments exactly. Google has the right to do whatever it wants, but I can't cosign this. It's a dangerous slippery slope, imo, and it basically amounts to censorship, which I generally don't support. People, i.e. grown-ass adults, should decide what is fake or not and what they want to see and what they don't want to see. We're not that dumb. And if we are, we should be free to be so without being treated like children, which is unfortunately a big trend.

Who decides what's fake news anyway? And why has this "fake news" trend suddenly become so popular now? We've had fake news for quite some time now, and most of it is mainstream news, television and newspaper. Looks like another method of control to me. And people are eating it up.

Damn good post!!!

 

[SneakDZA]

Glad about the ads but I don't like that Google are decidin' what is and isn't 'fake' news. It's not Google's fault people read bullshit and then don't use the search engine that the idiot is already on to fact check

My sentiments exactly. Google has the right to do whatever it wants, but I can't cosign this. It's a dangerous slippery slope, imo, and it basically amounts to censorship, which I generally don't support. People, i.e. grown-ass adults, should decide what is fake or not and what they want to see and what they don't want to see. We're not that dumb. And if we are, we should be free to be so without being treated like children, which is unfortunately a big trend.

Who decides what's fake news anyway? And why has this "fake news" trend suddenly become so popular now? We've had fake news for quite some time now, and most of it is mainstream news, television and newspaper. Looks like another method of control to me. And people are eating it up.

While I agree in sentiment... people have proven time and again that they are susceptible to messaging and propaganda and that's exactly what this fake news stuff is.

These idiots are out here trying to blow up pizza joints and shit - they can't be trusted to do their own research and come to logical conclusions based on facts and evidence.

Shit I wish they would permaban the bible, torah, koran, mediatakeout and all that other bullshit while they're at it since these fools' inability to discern fact from fiction is not only a danger to themselves but to everybody around them.

 

[PureYang]

Agree with Plutarch... Its a dangerous precedent for Google to be the gatekeeper on what's real and what's not...

Y'all think they got verify sources that are counterproductive to their bottom line?

Or just ban them, brush it under the rug and keep it pushing?

 

[SneakDZA]

Agree with Plutarch... Its a dangerous precedent for Google to be the gatekeeper on what's real and what's not...

Y'all think they got verify sources that are counterproductive to their bottom line?

Or just ban them, brush it under the rug and keep it pushing?

I'm pretty sure they just run analysis in the same way they do for spam, scam, domain squatter and phishing sites.

There will be plenty of bullshit news for people to find if that's what they're into but most likely the ones linked to known botnets or paid disseminators/content generators will be buried.

Google quietly bans/buries a lot of shit and this is no different. The fact that they only wiped out 200 of the zillion sites in their db should be an indicator that they're not just curating content all willy-nilly but actually targeting very specific circumstances.