Google To Prohibit Fake News Websites From Using Its Ad-Selling Software (reuters.com)

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google is working on a policy update that will prohibit fake news websites from using its ad-selling software. The move would ultimately make it more challenging for those fake news sites to earn revenue. Reuters reports: The policy change is imminent, Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville told Reuters. "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," she said in a statement. The policy change comes amid an intensifying debate over how much responsibility technology companies bear for monitoring the accuracy of content as more and more people access news through sites such as Facebook rather than traditional media companies. Facebook, in particular, has been criticized over the spread of inaccurate articles promoting U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on the site. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has denied that the site influenced the outcome of the election. Google's AdSense advertising network is a key financial driver for many publishers. The company places various restrictions on where its ads may be placed, including bans on pornographic and violent content. Work on the policy update began before the election, Faville said.

Comments

How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been a shit ton of these stories on the front page already. Isn't there anything better to talk about? This is a big part of why Slashdot sucks now. It used to be a mix of lots of stories that would appeal to nerds, but now we get a barrage of stories about topics like this. Slashdot used to be a site where nerds and people working in IT could get practical ideas and keep up date on trends in hardware and software. Those days are long gone, and Slashdot pretty much sucks now. And no, I'm not saying this isn't relevant, just that we don't need more stories about it.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look man. The only way to get people to really eat up the idea that Trump won because of fake news is to say it as much as possible.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[rtb61]

The reality is there is only one way to test the 'News' and that is in a court of law. So realistically if they want better 'News', they need to turns 'News', into a protected word. Use it in the title and by law you should be required to be truthful and accurate. Should be you subject to a legal challenge and proven to be inaccurate, then dependent upon the damage of the inaccuracy and whether intentional or accidental, there should be a penalty applied, either custodial and or a major fine and or being banned from using that word, 'News', in a publishing sense.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[AmiMoJo]

Can you explain exactly what is problematic about deciding that a story about, say, "X said Y" with multiple sources agreeing and Twitter retaining the tweet in question?

This idea that nothing is true (even if tested in court people will just claim the system is rigged/broken) has to die. Just really wanting it to be untrue doesn't make it so, or vice versa.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[johanw]

If you do that, "News" wil quickly mean the same as "propaganda".

Is this the end for the Onion?

[jfdavis668]

Do they even make a profit?

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[Anonymous Coward]

there are a lot of people who visit the onion on purpose looking for satire/humor. plus the onion's biggest 'marketing' strategy (IIRC from a report I read) was actually social media sharing and the like.

The onion also doesn't "misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," It readily admits that it is satire. so it shouldn't be affected by this.

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[fustakrakich]

It readily admits that it is satire...

Which turns out to be more truthful than the "serious" sites...

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are enough people who have believed the Onion's satirical articles are true to raise the possibility that it could be viewed as a fake news site. Unlikely, but possible.

In a broader sense, where do you draw the line between fake news that intends to deceive the reader and fake news that intends to make a point about real news. Reading the minds of the writers on each website isn't possible...at least as far as we know..../jk

Oh great..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what we need... Google deciding what is and isn't real news. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

What about CNN, that was lying about it being illegal to read Wikileaks? And yes, that was a lie, read this: https://popehat.com/2016/10/17...

Why didn't they want us to know about it? Oh, because we have emails between CNN and the DNC, they leaked the debate questions. Then they brought Donna Brazille on there to tell us they were somehow modified. Except, not so fast, Donna: they have DKIM authentication, which provides non-repudiation. And make sure you actually read the damned DKIM headers, because they include the b and bh parameters. So if you try and tell me they only protect the headers, you're going to get a lecture on the DKIM specification, because you're not just wrong, you can be mathematically proven wrong.

Anyhow, there's no great loss to the clickbait sites. Good riddance to such. However, inasmuch as they believe they can use this to control what people say and believe, I can only remind them of the Streisand Effect and laugh. Google took down the video from this story quite a few times before they started allowing it once it hit the news: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

In case you're wondering what Snopes says about it, they say it's "mixed." You see, there was a fender bender and the guy wanted to exchange insurance info before they brutally beat him and dragged him from the back of his own car, which they stole while nearly killing him.

This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal is to eliminate "fake" news, but the problem isn't even who defines what is real, what is opinion, and what is factually untrue. The real problem is google has stated its intention is to starve sites they dislike into nonexistance.

Are sites with news about "Ancient Aliens" banned? Easy to show as fake news, but as history channel shows - hugely popular and what many in the public enjoy. Real? Fake? Who cares, the public wants it.

News stories about Clinton Foundation "pay to play" corruption. "Someone" will decide if this is misleading fake news. No convictions yet, must be fake. Ban them and bury the story.

News story about Trump being racist? No proof he isn't, must be legit. Pay the website.

This is how the internet will die, in a flood of corporate decided and approved facts and filters.
Why buy the politicians anymore, when they can own and control what is considered worthy of being "legit"

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Jesus H Christ, are we on such a low point that "sites will starve" unless Google gives your money?

PS: What's with this shit about "no proof" on Trump being racist? He's on record making racists remarks during his own campaing, for fucks sake.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we expect a President to be mentally competent?

You mean, like free of "head injuries" that prevent a person from giving full, accurate, and truthful answers to a Congressional committee investigating possible criminal wrongdoing while Secretary of State?

I guess if Clinton had won, you'd be calling for her to step down because of her mental disabilities.

Right?

Or are you just another two-bit partisan hypocrite/shill?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Orgasmatron]

Many of us have been asking (for close to a year and a half now!) for a verbatim racist quote and a video of the words coming out of his mouth. No takers so far.

Are you up to the challenge? Should be easy, since you claim that he is "on record making racists [sic] remarks".

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism has a new meaning these last few years. Saying anything negative in relation to any ethnicity, except white, is racist. For instance, the FBI crime statistic that indicates 52% of murders are committed by people that are part of a demographic consisting of 13% of the population is now racist.

Today some facts are considered racist. Trump says some of those racist things, ergo...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[phantomfive]

If I were in charge, I would ban only the most obvious cases, and leave the uncertain areas untouched. Easiest way to avoid controversy.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Oh, the ones about all Mexicans being rapists and murderers

Provide a full quote.

You've failed again to do that simple thing.

He was talking about illegal aliens of the Mexican variety, which is not "all mexicans." The ones breaking our laws are criminals you know. Every single mexican here illegally is a criminal. 100% of them.

Apparently google would demote everything you say, since what you say is fake.

The facts are that the cries of racism about trump have always been of the special-snowflake social-justice-warrior variety. In this version of racism its "micro-aggressions" that are now racist. Ask a Mexican where they are from and thats racist, etc...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

–Presidential announcement speech, June 16, 2015

“I can never apologize for the truth. I don’t mind apologizing for things. But I can’t apologize for the truth. I said tremendous crime is coming across. Everybody knows that’s true. And it’s happening all the time. So, why, when I mention, all of a sudden I’m a racist. I’m not a racist. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”

– Interview on Fox News’ “Media Buzz,” July 5, 2015

“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”

– Statement about his June 16 comments, July 6, 2015

You know, racism doesn't cease to be racism only because it sounds good to you.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Ah, so you were only being racist towards illegal mexicans.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[AmiMoJo]

It's actually fairly easy to determine with a very high degree of probability if news is fake or not. If it's some random blog site or Breitbart publishing it, and none of the other mainstream news outlets pick it up, it's probably fake. If it's not fake, other journalists will look at it and pick the story up.

For example, story about Trump being racist. Did many web sites with a reputation for at least basic fact checking use the same quote? Does his Twitter feed contain that quote? Then yes, opinion of if it is racist or not, the fact that he said it is very likely to be true.

There is no vast conspiracy to bury news that might be harmful to one side or the other. If the media really was in Clinton's pocket, how come they put out that story about the FBI investigating a new batch of emails a week before the election, which turned her near certain victory into a loss? It's just alt-right fantasies that have been proven to be bullshit, not least by the fact that the alt-right is now going to be running the country.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Sure. Let me transcribe his full speeches until i hit something that doesn't make you uncomfortable.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is going to debate about whether those statements are racist when they are snipped out of a fuller context. The snipping is on purpose to remove context.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Ah, so you were only being racist towards illegal mexicans.

See what you did there? You just transfered Trumps alleged racism to me. You couldn't provide proof of his racism, so now I gotta be racist too?

I didnt even vote for Trump you dumb fucking triggered liberal liar.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you seem to be of the 'anything-bad-ever-said-about-a-non-white-person-is-"racist"' school of thought.

Yes, there are many, many alien criminals who can be deported. About 2 million according to DHS, half illegal immigrants (who could be deported anyway, criminal or not) and half non-citizen legal aliens.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-arent-2-to-3-million-undocumented-immigrants-with-criminal-records-for-trump-to-deport/

Facts aren't racist.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Damn right i am. I quoted the guy verbatim being a racist and you argued he is "talking about illegal aliens of the Mexican variety" (sic). Rationalize that however you like.

But hey. I'm sure you assume some are good people.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

No, i'm of the school of though where calling every single illegal Mexican immigrant drug dealers and rapists is racist, you dickwad.

The scary thing is how effectively this cheap rhetoric seems to work on people like you.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe calling an opponent a "fucking Jew bastard", or saying Mahatma Gandhi ran a gas station, or saying of then-Senator Obama that "[a] few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee", joking about "colored people time" with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, telling Native Americans to "get off the reservation", starting the Obama birther rumors, or calling young black men "super-predators"?

Oh, right, the Clintons did those things, so that makes them not racist.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Entrope]

What's wrong with being deportable? To coin a phrase, half of Hillary Clinton's supporters are what I would call a basket of deportables.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[blackfeltfedora]

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts" These sites have allowed this to happen.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

You just transfered Trumps alleged racism to me.

Well, yeah. Racism is transitive. If you vote for the racist guy, that means you are supporting racism. That makes you racist.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Orgasmatron]

I don't see any racism in any of those quotes. Even if I pretend that "Mexican" or "Mexican Government" is a race, I still don't see it. Many illegals are criminals. Is that even controversial? Are people claiming that only angels are crossing our southern border?

Please explain.

I've seen it said that the most racist thing that Donald Trump ever said was:

So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

It's just alt-right fantasies that have been proven to be bullshit,

It's #7 (obsession with plot) on Umberto Eco's tests of ur-facism. Trump actually fits all 14 tests remarkably well.

The list of tests was written in 1995 when Trump was an unsuccessful business man, burning through daddy's money with a succession of bankruptcies.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

I think the goal is more to prevent wasting investments, like the investment they did in Hillary which is now worthless.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

The term "racism" has been so misused that a lot of people now think "so I'm a racist whatever I do because I'm white, fine then I'll be a racist. Now fuck those niiggers".

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I don’t see how there is any room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the statement I made on June 16th during my Presidential announcement speech. Here is what I said, and yet this statement is deliberately distorted by the media:

“When Mexico (meaning the Mexican Government) sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you (pointing to the audience). They’re not sending you (pointing again). They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.”

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a 5 time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States. In other words, the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican
government. The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this. Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world. On the other hand, many fabulous people come in from Mexico and our country is better for it. But these people are here legally, and are severely hurt by those coming in illegally. I am proud to say that I know many hard working Mexicans—many of them are working for and with meand, just like our country, my organization is better for it.

The Mexican Government wants an open border as long as it’s a ONE WAY open border into the United States. Not only are they killing us at the border, but they are killing us on trade and the country of Mexico is making billions of dollars in doing so.

I have great respect for Mexico and love their people and their peoples’ great spirit. The problem is, however, that their leaders are far smarter, more cunning, and better negotiators than ours. To the citizens of the United States, who I will represent far better than anyone else as President, the Mexican government is not our friendand why should they be when the relationship is totally one sided in their favor on both illegal immigration and trade. I have pointed this out during my speeches and it is something Mexico doesn’t want me to say. In actuality, it was only after my significant rise in the polls that Univision, previously my friend, went ballistic. I believe that my examples of bad trade deals for the United States was of even more concern to the Mexican government than my talk of border security.

I have lost a lot during this Presidential run defending the people of the United States. I have always heard that it is very hard for a successful person to run for President. Macy’s, NBC, Serta and NASCAR have all taken the weak and very sad position of being politically correct even though they are wrong in terms of what is good for our country. Univision, because 70% of their business comes from Mex

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

Complaining that muslims are not liked by a non-muslim is like complaining that blacks don't like KKK members. You generally don't like those who are opposed to your way of life.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Not when done under duress.

Well, i'm sorry, but that comes in the package.

What's really scary is how flat out open racism and xenophobia aren't electoral deal breakers anymore. People just don't give a shit. Hasan Minhaj made a very poignant statement on the matter a couple days ago: you might not support Trump statements, but you don't really care either. Honestly, it is just as bad.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

This goes beyond "not liking". The guy flat out called to close the borders to people based on their religious beliefs. Is that even legal under US constitution?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisandro - "every single illegal Mexican"

Trump - "They are, in many cases[...]"

Do you not see the difference? He has never claimed that every single illegal Mexican alien was a drug dealer or a rapist, just that in many cases that is true. He even went so far as to say, "some, I assume, are good people". So no, it's not racist, you're just wanting to see racism here so it fits your tired rhetoric of, "ugh! ugh! Trump BAD! Lisandro SMASH bad racist man! ugh! ugh!"

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

I see. Well, i think all Anonymous Cowards are drug dealers and rapists. But hey, some - i assume - are good people!

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[meta-monkey]

Is that even legal under US constitution?

Yes. The President has the authority to ban any group of people from coming here at any time for any reason. This is rather important because if you wind up in a war, it's nice to be able to say "we're banning all Germans from coming to the US" without getting sued for being racist against Germans.

The free exercise clause only applies to people within the jurisdiction of the US. If you're a muslim in Saudi Arabia and you apply for a visa, you're still sitting in Riyadh when the immigration official stamps it "denied." Obama could ban all travel from left-handed lesbian Amish eskimos tomorrow and it would be perfectly legal.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

What about citizens? There're close to 4,000,000 Islamic US citizens; it is in fact the third largest religion in the country.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[AmiMoJo]

It's hard to know how dangerous he really is, because he acts like a child but does actually have all that power. When things aren't going his way it's all rigged and a giant conspiracy against him, when he wins it's all fine.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

It's hard to know how dangerous he really is, because he acts like a child but does actually have all that power.

Indeed. One cause for concern is how easily goaded he is, for example the whole "small hands" thing and getting into 3am twitter fights with former models. Who knows what he'll be goaded into by experienced politicians.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[meta-monkey]

No, not citizens. But he wasn't talking about citizens, he was talking about foreign travelers. Which makes sense when US-backed forces have wrecked the middle east over the past 15 years...maybe it's not the best idea to let them into the US right now in case they want some revenge. Also, many US presidents have done similar things. Obama banned travel from Iraq for awhile, Carter banned travel from Iran, etc.

The purpose of the government of the United States is to protect the people of the United States and act in their best interests, not to be nice to everyone in the world. It may hurt some Muslims' feelings for a bit that while ISIS is still promising terror attacks around the world we're not going to let them in the US, but oh well. Also Trump later "softened" this position to "extreme vetting for travelers from areas with a high propensity for radical Islamic terrorism."

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go putting words in people's mouths again. Trump never said all Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists; that much is plain as day in the quotes you yourself posted. You really need to work on your reading comprehension. Or, if you're a shill... please realize that there's no reason to shill for Hillary anymore because she lost.

P.S. It's okay not to like Trump. It's not okay to throw around the word racism anytime you see or hear things you don't like. It devalues the word and discredits people that point out ACTUAL racism. You know, boy that cried wolf and all that...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

I quoted the guy verbatim

I asked for a full quote.

Why did you intentionally and wholly dishonestly leave out context?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Well, yeah. Racism is transitive. If you vote for the racist guy, that means you are supporting racism. That makes you racist.

But I didn't vote for him.

See how being completely contrary to the facts is a democrat past time now?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

That makes you racist.

Now you are also calling me a racist.

Oh... whats that? I didn't fully quote you? Yeah. About that...... context doesnt matter. I can take any small snippet. Fair play goes both ways.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

You should really look up the definition of "quote".

But what the hell, i'll bite. Show me the context i'm leaving out which somehow makes these statements acceptable.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[baristabrian]

Jesus H Christ, are we on such a low point that "sites will starve" unless Google gives your money?

PS: What's with this shit about "no proof" on Trump being racist? He's on record making racists remarks during his own campaing, for fucks sake.

It's gotten to the point where (BECAUSE of the Left) that hurling accusations of being "racist" (and misogynist, and sexist and xenophobic and islamophobic ... ad nauseam) really do NOT mean anything anymore. Jesse Jackson? RACIST. But, that's OK? Because HE is Black? WTF? Or is it because he didn't spew "racist" invective enough? Didn't reach the "threshold?" Didn't get singled out by enough of the electorate or ... big money donors? Hypocrisy (and over-the-top, sensationalized, histrionic-laden hyperbole) has divided this country more than anything. Hillary (and Al Sharpton and a slew of others—including many on the "Right") are demagogues. PURE and SIMPLE. YOU don't seem to see it. Good luck with that. ME? A poor and homeless guy? I can see it. I am a highschool drop out and have to "cockroach" bandwidth. What's YOUR excuse for being so fucking *partisan* and/or IGNORANT? Enough of the name-calling. I NEVER called Hillary a CUNT.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Wow. You're one confused individual.

Tough times ahead

[Kohath]

For NBC then. Now we need Google to ban:
- sites that intentionally withhold news stories from the public for partisan reasons
- news sites that feed pre-selected questions to a candidate before a debate
- sites that frame Hillary getting investigated by the FBI as "Republicans pounce on Hillary allegations"
- Upworthy
- IPCC predictions
- political polling
- Twitter
- and the rest of everyone trying to troll and clickbait and hyperbolize current events

Re:Tough times ahead

[ThatsMyNick]

Google is drawing the line at fake news, there is nothing wrong with that. You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit, that is fine too. Just not where google chose the line.

Re:Tough times ahead

[popo]

Do polling results that give Clinton an 86% chance of winning the election just one day beforehand count as fake news?

https://imgur.com/a/ZIt8h

Will the NY Times be on the list of publications prohibited from running Google ads?

It's either manipulated data, or it's grossly flawed and incompetent. Pick one. I would think either fulfills the criteria for "fake".

Re:Tough times ahead

[segedunum]

Google is drawing the line at fake news, there is nothing wrong with that. You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit, that is fine too. Just not where google chose the line.

I think you need to sit down in a darkened room for a while and work out why that is incredibly stupid. Neither you, nor Google or anyone else, are capable of judging 'fake news'. One person's opinion is another person's fake news. The world just cannot work like that.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Entrope]

As HuffPo said, Nate Silver was obviously putting his thumb on the scales when he forecast a 35% chance of a Trump win. "It’s not easy to sit here and tell you that Clinton has a 98 percent chance of winning", Ryan Grim wrote. (He still hasn't owned up to how badly he bungled the statistics.)

Re:Tough times ahead

[AmiMoJo]

sites that frame Hillary getting investigated by the FBI as "Republicans pounce on Hillary allegations"

It's sad that people can't even tell the difference between news, i.e. reporting of the facts, and opinion/editorial these days.

Re:Tough times ahead

[serviscope_minor]

You do understand that even 86% isn't a dead cert, right?

If I tell you you're unlikely to roll double 6 and you do doea that mean I'm lying or that you're an idiot for not understanding statistics?

Re:Tough times ahead

[Kohath]

The main difference is that "news" stories in the US are almost all editorializing. For facts, we need to learn to pick through the subtext. Or read foreign news sources.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Gilgaron]

Ha! That's like when Italy wanted to put those geologists on trial for not predicting the earthquake a few years back... if the polling says 86% by stats than that's that. Just because it ended up wrong doesn't make it a lie. She did win the popular vote, after all. The margins she lost in the right states to lose the electoral college were well within the precision of the polls.

Re:Tough times ahead

[AmiMoJo]

Try Reuters or AP, they do simple factual statement style releases that the other news outlets then pick up and editorialize. The BBC has a more readable style and makes a genuine effort to stay neutral, if those two are too dry for you.

Re:Tough times ahead

[tlhIngan]

Ha! That's like when Italy wanted to put those geologists on trial for not predicting the earthquake a few years back... if the polling says 86% by stats than that's that. Just because it ended up wrong doesn't make it a lie. She did win the popular vote, after all. The margins she lost in the right states to lose the electoral college were well within the precision of the polls.

Actually, the geologists weren't predicting the earthquake, they were DENYING the earthquake. The region was undergoing a fair bit more seismic activity than normal, and the population was getting worried - did all these recent small earthquakess point to a potentially larger earthquake in the future?

So the population was concerned that a big earthquake was on the way. The geologists basically told the population to not worry - there is no earthquake on the way, and to resume your normal lives. So instead of potentially preparing for an earthquake, the people believed the geologists and resumed their lives, and that's when the big one struck.

The geologists were charged because of that, not because they failed to predict the earthquake. Whether or not they studied the ground to see if there was an increased likelihood, the fact that they said no earthquake was coming was the real issue.

Perhaps they needed to study it a bit more and maybe end up saying something more like "while the concern is valid, in general only 10% of the time this leads to a bigger earthquake. So prepare yourself in case it's the 10%, but also go about your day."

Re:Tough times ahead

[rhazz]

Actually, the geologists weren't predicting the earthquake, they were DENYING the earthquake.

Speaking of fake news, that is incorrect. The geologists were predicting the earthquake, and they said it was improbable but not impossible. A government official said there was "no danger" in an interview before actually meeting with the scientists, and the public accepted that statement as being the scientific consensus.

"A large earthquake along the lines of the 1703 event is improbable in the short term," said Enzo Boschi a member of the Italian Serious Risks Commission, during the meeting. "But the possibility cannot definitively be excluded." After the meeting, the government held a press conference in which it told Italians that a major earthquake in the region of L’Aquila was improbable. And in a television interview, government official and hydrologist Bernardo De Bernardinis said that "the scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy" during the seismic disturbances. That interview, however, was actually taped before the meeting on March 31st, and the statements made by De Bernardinis were false — tremors don’t release energy that would otherwise be implicated in an earthquake. But given its airtime and De Bernadinis’ authority, residents of L’Aquila who saw the interview were given the distinct impression that his comments were representative of the scientific meeting.

Source.

Re:Tough times ahead

[segedunum]

Google certainly can determine for itself what it considers to be fake news.

No, it can't. It inevitably boils down to opinion, and that means censorship no matter what way you look at it. What about the fake story that it's all the Russians?

So can Facebook and any other web site. If you don't agree with their choices, go to another web site, or create one that adheres to an absolutist no-filtering policy. I wish you create success,

I wish Facebook, and Google, 'create' success reading and vetting every article written on every news web site..................

Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

"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".

This is straightforward. Why is everyone acting like Google is trying to control news?

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

You really need to read that sentence up there again.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[PopeRatzo]

Basically, Google is saying you can't advertise a website that purports to be ABC News if you are not ABC News. I'm still trying to figure out your problem with this.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

You and me both. I don't know what bothers me most, that Slashdot is running so many misleading headlines lately or the fact that people can't seem to bother to think about what they read anymore.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Gavagai80]

People are no longer able to distinguish between biased news and fake news, conflate the two, and consider their favored made up stories to be morally equal to any bias in the opposing ideology's mainstream media. It's sick. Personally, as a liberal, I have no problem with the existence of the likes of FOX News -- they're biased, but they're just putting their slant on stories that are at least connected to reality and open to evidence. All news sources do that because everyone has some bias as a result of their differing life experiences.

Making up fake stories not connected to reality is a completely different game we've been seeing way too much of which should not be tolerated.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

But the announcement has nothing to do with news. Why is everyone acting like it does?!

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Rockoon]

Maybe because Google has already been caught biasing search?

The first "media" to point this out is anything but conservative. It was SourceFed

"Google has been actively altering search recommendations in factor of Hillary's campaign."

Of course, if you lean Democrat then thats not a problem... funny how bias works.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

The irony of you providing a YouTube link to prove Google biases news was delicious. Thanks.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Entrope]

No, they are saying that you can't run ads through Google's ad network on a website that purports to be ABC News if it isn't actually run by ABC News.

It might have an effect if all the other ad networks out there adopt similar policies, in which case there's probably an antitrust argument to be made against the ad networks.

Finally... I hope

[imidan]

Does this mean I can stop getting stories on my Google News page from 'Ecumenical News' and 'Christian Daily', two religious news web sites that apparently went belly-up some years ago, had their domains purchased by scammers, and now serve clickbait bullshit constantly? All they ever do is somehow zero in on some search term I used recently and then feed me fake headlines about that thing.

Like, for months now, I've constantly had a story on my news page about Rick and Morty (which I searched for one day in July, and these stories started the next day) from one or the other of those sites. Today, it's "'Rick and Morty' season 3 update: Release date revealed and other spoilers" from Ecumenical News. I don't click them; they're just a gibberish mishmash of rumors from elsewhere on the web. I 'Personalized' my Google News feed and set both of these news sources to the lowest they'll go, but unfortunately, it seems impossible to exclude them completely.

Before that, it was a constant stream of rumor-mill bullshit about The Arrow and the drama between cast members. These sites are NOT NEWS, they're just algorithmicly generated clickbait. Preferably, they would both die a fiery death, but in the meantime, if I could just get them off of my news feed, I'd be mollified.

Re:Finally... I hope

[Luthair]

Don't forget Indian Times or whatever it is...

Re:Finally... I hope

[AmiMoJo]

Try installing Privacy Badger and maybe turning off your search history on your Google account. That should get rid of that crap.

Re:Finally... I hope

[imidan]

The thing is, I'm not totally opposed to having Google customize my news feed to some extent based upon whatever they think I'm interested in... I just wish they wouldn't use fake news to do it, and maybe let me totally shut off certain news sources when they demonstrate bad behavior.

Define "fake"...

[dbreeze]

... and why is Google doing the defining...?

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they're the ones paying up.

Re:Define "fake"...

[PopeRatzo]

Because they can. What good is a monopoly if you're not going to abuse it to advance your agenda?

Google doesn't have a monopoly, for the record.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

46% is not a monopoly. If you can make money with adsense, you can make money with Doubleclick.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Rockoon]

Google doesn't have a monopoly

it sure as fuck does in online advertising.

Re:Define "fake"...

[AmiMoJo]

I binged "google monopoly" and it turned up loads of sites about how Google is a monopoly, so I think you might be wrong about that.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[frovingslosh]

Of course it will apply to CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. If it didn't then it would just be more liberal bullshit.

Re:Trump didn't win

[MightyMartian]

I think the alt-right and the alt-left are both a pack of delusional morons. This is the source of fake news; if you write it, no matter how absurd, there's some fucking retard partisan who will lap it up.

Fire BeauHD

[bongey]

F**king BeauHD cannot get over the butt hurt of the election. His twitter feed, "Trump is a saggy sack of shit. If any one of you is even remotely considering voting for him this November, please unfollow me. "
"That sack of shit next to Hillary is attracting flies! #debate"
"Clinton wiped the floor with Trump tonight. Say hello to your next president, America!"
" It's only a story because it has the 'Trump' buzzword. Stupid media is stupid."
"I bet Trump hired the climber for publicity."

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Orgasmatron]

No one gives a fuck what viewpoint he is "having". Lots of us care very much about what viewpoint he is abusing his position as editor to spread.

Do you remember the 2 or 3 days last week when every 3rd or 4th story here was about how we were all going to die because Trump won? Guess who posted a big chunk of that...

"Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic To Lead EPA Transition"
"How President Trump Could Destroy Net Neutrality"
"Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook"
"Slashdot Asks: Should The US Abolish The Electoral College?"
"Silicon Valley Investors Call For California To Secede From the US After Trump Win "

Is this what you want? Yet another site posting Democrat propaganda 24/7 with a sprinkling of technology news on slow politics-news days?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[ChoGGi]

That explains the slew of anti-Trump articles just after the election. Being that I'm not an American (and I am interested in tech) I was hoping political stories would die down around here afterwards).

Re:Fire BeauHD

[fafalone]

Is this what you want? Yet another site posting Democrat propaganda 24/7 with a sprinkling of technology news on slow politics-news days?

Judging by the numbers of comments on the articles like this versus the number of comments on articles actually about software and hardware topics, yes, that's precisely what the vast majority of /. wants.

And yes that sucks... join me in the puppy and coloring book filled safe space?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[AmiMoJo]

Where are all the Free Speech Warriors? Masahki? Come on, you defended Eich's "right" to say offensive stuff in public and keep his job, why aren't you leaping to the support of BeauHD now?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[serviscope_minor]

Interesting that you complain about all the articles putting Trump in a bad light but not about any of the ones putting Hillary in a bad light.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[avandesande]

It's a circular feedback loop... slashdot has changed focus and so has it's readership base.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Jews are greedy, but they look out for follow Jews. Google is run by Jews, so you can be sure they won't blacklist other sites run by Jews.

I'd have thought the election would have calmed you down a bit, Mr Bannon.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politic...

Re:Where? Sign me up!

[PopeRatzo]

I've been using software to block that shit for years and if it pisses off Mark Cuban all the better.

You've really cut into Mark Cuban's revenue. Well done. Before you know it, he'll be broke and destitute.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[ShanghaiBill]

Maybe Google should just get out of the censorship business, rather than trying to use their ad service to micromanage what people see and hear. Fake news is not good, but it is not Google's job to "correct" it. By feeding the conspiracy theorists, they are just making the problem worse.

Seeing that mainstream media is mostly

[melted]

Seeing that mainstream media is mostly fake nowadays, news sites should worry. Especially liberal lapdogs like HuffPo, WaPo, CNN and so on.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Polling isn't an exact science. There are plenty of educated (or not) guesses baked into the final result, and the superficial precision of a +/- 3% margin of error is highly misleading.

Now whether the polling companies universally overestimated democratic turnout because of mere incompetence or because they wanted to push a narrative is unknown, at least for now. Calling the polls 'rigged' for Hillary sounds conspiratorial until you remember how completely the rest of the system was 'rigged' for her. (The fact that a few loud people on the right made themselves look like fucking idiots in 2012 with their "unskewed" polls predicting a Romney landslide doesn't help either.)

Re:Trump didn't win

[MightyMartian]

I'm the guy that doesn't suffered paranoid delusions and imagines every dark corner contains someone trying to fuck me over.

No more jury duty!

[Black Parrot]

Just have the prosecution put up a web site claiming that the accused is guilty and the defense put up one saying innocent, then the judge can check to see which Google accepts or rejects.

Likewise good for hiring decisions, investment decisions, policy decisions etc. Kind of like a boolean Ouija board.

Let's test it on whether we should go see the new Star Wars movie, which doesn't seem to be generating the usual hype.

The onion

[thesupraman]

How exactly will try differentiate between satire and fake news?

The answer is if course that you cannot.

Stupid announcement.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a "conspiracy theory" if they openly admit it.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Gavagai80]

This is the source of fake news; if you write it, no matter how absurd, there's some fucking retard partisan who will lap it up.

You've hit on an important point, but not carried it far enough. The reason we're inundated by fake news is that the more blatantly extreme and fake you make your story the more people will feel compelled to share it.

Every obscure website dreams of the riches that will result from one of their stories going viral. They've now caught on to the fact that making up political lies to get a fake "scoop" on something that will really outrage hyperpartisans into thinking that the future of civilization depends on forcing everyone they know to read your story is the most effective shortcut to do that. I'm sure some of these stories are manipulation for political reasons, but some of them are just in the interests of profit. And their profit is what google is hoping to make a dent in.

Re:Check your sources next time, they're bad.

[Xenographic]

I got logged out somehow, the parent was me.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

I figured they were referencing this, actually -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

> Unlike PKI, DKIM has no revocation list mechanism natively. If one were to steal the keys, the best anyone could do is say "No, really, that email that appears to be sent from me and signed by me really wasn't!"

Two points:

* There is a way to revoke the keys, even if it doesn't involve CRLs or OCSP -

INFORMATIVE NOTE: A key may also be revoked as described below. The distinction between revoking and removing a key selector record is subtle. When phasing out keys as described above, a signing domain would probably simply remove the key record after the transition period. However, a signing domain could elect to revoke the key (but maintain the key record) for a further period. There is no defined semantic difference between a revoked key and a removed key.

INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: If a private key has been compromised or otherwise disabled (e.g., an outsourcing contract has been terminated), a signer might want to explicitly state that it knows about the selector, but all messages using that selector should fail verification. Verifiers should ignore any DKIM-Signature header fields with a selector referencing a revoked key.

* One of the keys in this example belongs to Google. So our hypothetical attacker in this case needs both GMail's key and hillaryclinton.com's. And both cover the body of the message. Here's the signature from this email just so everyone is clear on what we're talking about:

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=hillaryclinton.com; s=google;
h=from:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:date:message-id:subject:to :cc;
bh=EHIyNFKU1g6KhzxpAJQtxaW82g5+cTT3qlzIbUpGoRY=;
b=JgW85tkuhlDcythkyCrUMjPIAjHbUVPtgyqu+KpUR/kqQjE8+W23zacIh0DtVTqUGD
mzaviTrNmI8Ds2aUlzEFjxhJHtgKT4zbRiqDZS7fgba8ifMKCyDgApGNfenmQz+81+hN
2OHb/pLmmop+lIeM8ELXHhhr0m/Sd4c/3BOy8=
X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=1e100.net; s=20130820;
h=x-gm-message-state:from:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:date :message-id:subject:to:cc;
bh=EHIyNFKU1g6KhzxpAJQtxaW82g5+cTT3qlzIbUpGoRY=;
b=dEYKdN2vH085sl/02zUgJ1Lr66LV8lRV9Lrqx9SIpfiF1bOLLbIr1Au6AAY5vwg1vS
klK/TvacKT0j8aYADGNWP6BtG5XZ+IME6ydojlufQ3jqksqLkycSJ2ahYhxw4LmCii8n
kja2EKzRFcKGPnfhYnfwBCmIk/D5FWN6+yvpAYSmmZlxsR4b7mTJ8r/NmB7dKRIHeq8b

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[phantomfive]

It is their job to find good information, and make it easy to find. I agree with your post too, that they shouldn't censor or correct. So I agree with both sides.
Tough decision.

Who Becomes Executioner?

[Dangerous_Minds]

A lot of small news sites use Google Adsense because the connections are small to non-existent. The resources to negotiate deals directly is virtually non-existent which is why some simply throw these ads on in the first place. Another reason is that it is a pretty good way to ensure journalistic independence. You aren't beholden necessarily to your advertisers in the same way some traditional news organizations (i.e. TV broadcasting) are beholden to theirs. These policies need to be very carefully weighed and not rushed through. A lot more could be at stake than blacklisting clickbait sites and alt-right "news" sites that post the most ludicrous conspiracy theories as facts.

One reason I would personally worry about such a policy is who plays the role of executioner? How does Google determine a site is real or fake? Is there independent reporting involved? If so, what's to stop someone from maliciously reporting a competing site as a fake news site to cut off their funding?

On the flip side, this kind of policy also has the potential of hurting Google. What's to stop sites, regardless if they are fairly or unfairly targeted crying foul and holding Google up on anti-trust allegations? Google does, in fact, hold a lot of power. If Google comes knocking with some kind of notice saying you've been cut off, what are the alternatives to Adsense? How many other ad distribution networks distribute ads with drive-by malware, etc.?

I personally can only see things getting messy even if Google has the best intentions in mind for everyone.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

A) CNN didn't say anything about people with clearances, instead they divided the world into two groups, the media (where it's okay) and the rest, where it's not okay.

B) That part is explicitly covered in the Popehat article which I linked, anyhow.

C) Wikileaks publishes all verifiable and true material leaked to it and goes for maximum impact, but they're not a hacking group, they can only operate if they have leaks.

For most leaks, you can simply go to ABC / CBS / NBC and avoid playing spy. Wikileaks was needed here, because the media themselves are complicit in many of the things in the Podesta dump. I mean, we have emails like this one showing them going behind their own lawyers' backs to send donors to the Washington Post's party, after being forbidden to put it on the price sheet. That really looks like a campaign donation of some kind, and their own lawyers explicitly forbade it. This is just one of many, many, many such examples. With the media doing things behind everyone's back, how can we be expected to just shut up and trust them, as CNN tried to encourage?

TW3 (TWTWTW)

[d'baba]

That Was The Week That Was (UK)
That Was The Week That Was (US)
The Daily Show with *
The Onion
Fox News

As long as we all can see the difference between satirical news coverage
(which tends to bend the facts a bit (left/right it doesn't matter)) for the laugh
and bs stories passed off as "hard news". We can't as a platform. We all just
gotta pay more attention.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Kiuas]

rather than trying to use their ad service to micromanage what people see and hear

But there's no way for them NOT to do that. Ad-revenue follows the amount of views, which means if they do nothing they're essentially taking a stance of 'we'll facilitate the spread of any type of mis-information as long as it makes us money". So they're already doing it now, they're just slightly changing their parameters. It's their product and platform, they have no obligation whatsoever to spread lies to make money if they don't want to.

Fake news is not good, but it is not Google's job to "correct" it.

And why not? It's a search engine, the point of which is to provide people accurate information. If some trolls/hackers/political shills/whatever try to skew the search results so that upon googling thing X, instead a completely unrelated/false article Y comes up, that means their product is not operating as intended and they should correct it.

Fake News Site

[Isendur]

Oh man, Slashdot is screwed ;)

Dear Mark Zuckerberg

[facetube]

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I'm writing to you with a concern of critical national importance. I hope that you will read what I've written and consider it carefully. I believe that Facebook has a moral duty to act.

I've spent the last 18 months or so participating in our political process on Facebook. I've joined Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump groups. I've attempted to argue my position with my neighbors and fellow citizens, trying to explain to them why I think Donald Trump's proposals, policies, and distortion of truth are bad for the country. But that's not what I'm writing to you about today.

I'm writing to share the depravity I witnessed and participated in – a torrent of personal attacks, of name-calling, of ad hominem, of attacking the individual instead of the argument. I was called a "fag", a "pussy" and a "libtard". I watched people who shared my position call others "baggers", "stupid fucks", "bigots", "inbred", and "fuckwits". I did it. I am ashamed. These insults don't demean a position, or idea, or way of thinking. Those can easily be discarded by people. They can be shed. They're not an identity, no matter how much identity politics wants us to believe that. I participated in it. I am culpable. You are culpable. We are culpable.

I'll refrain from discussing James Comey's misconduct or RNC obstruction. That's all been well documented. Hillary Clinton called 25% of the country "a basket of deplorables". Not their positions, not their conduct, not their statements – them. That has an impact. It causes social pain. This is a well-documented thing in human health. It exists.

Trevor Noah of the Daily Show, America's least-appreciated successor to Jon Stewart, made a critically important point in my opinion: the basket is actually the most offensive part of this. It conjures images of a portion of the nation about to be thrown away economically, a portion that has been or will be left behind, a portion of the country that – true or not – fears they have no place in human progress. That is toxic. It cannot stand in a free and open society.

I watched my fellow citizens literally hunt down pictures of peoples' children, photoshop text on to them (sorry Adobe), and use them as political ammunition in blind rage. I've watched people use Facebook's comically understaffed and unsophisticated reporting system as a means of retaliation, to get accounts pulled, to remove peoples' ability to participate at all instead of attempt to address their arguments. This is sick. This is depravity. This cannot stand.

Facebook must add tools for fact-checking positions. It must add tools to redirect people away from personal attacks, from tracking down peoples' employers, from mining through the personal lives of others in retaliation for expressing a dissenting opinion, no matter how misguided. It must stop the spread of fake news from Veles, Macedonia designed to channel our collective outrage at things that aren't even true into Google AdSense payments. It needs to stop placing news from domains like USANEWSPOLITIC24.COM on equal visual footing with the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Oregonian. Facebook owes it to the world, it owes it to the country, and it owes it to its shareholders, who would like to see this grand experiment in social participation actually survive long term.

Mark, you have a duty to act. Your silence is disconcerting. Please. America can learn a powerful lesson from this tragedy of an election. The whole world is watching.

Please publish this letter anonymously. Please withhold and protect my identity for a minimum of one year. I genuinely fear reprisal and retaliation. I fear for my country and I fear for my life.

https://github.com/livefreeord...

MOD PARENT UP

[rsmith-mac]

While politics are a part of the tech landscape, Slashdot isn't supposed to be a politics website. Politics should augment the tech discussion, not the other way around.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[TheRaven64]

or a hard worker for Putin

Really? We're scared of Russia now? The Cold War ended because the Russian economy completely collapsed and still hasn't recovered to anything like the previous levels. Their GDP is under a tenth that of the USA or EU and has been declining steadily for years. Their GDP is slightly above that of Spain and well below that of Italy (two of the 'failing' economies in the EU, which are both a fraction of the size of Russia).

Mexico has an economy that is only about 20% smaller than that of Russia. Should we now be afraid of them? After all, they're a lot closer to the USA

China is at number 2 (3 if you count the EU as a single entity, even if you remove the UK), so they'd make a much more credible threat, but they aren't being touted as one because no one wants to offend a country with an economy that big.

How is "Mexican" a race?

[swb]

How is Mexican a race? In terms of genetically heritable appearance, Mexicans vary from light-skinned Caucasians indistinguishable from European Spaniards to dark-skinned Mestizos to those more similar to indigenous peoples of North America.

I see a huge variety here in Minnesota with no dominant characteristic beyond shorter than most of the Scandahoovians, a height difference I'd ascribe to something between genetics and poor neo/postnatal nutrition.

Trump's broad brush might best be described as xenophobic if you had to pick a negative label for his description, but racist doesn't stick because Mexican isn't a race.

For me, the bottom line is there really isn't any acceptable level of criminal behavior by undocumented immigrants, and preventing undocumented immigration as much as possible also eliminates the crimes they commit.

Re:How is "Mexican" a race?

[Braintrust]

Absolutely goddamn right.

Well said.

Re:How is "Mexican" a race?

[Lisandro]

"Mexican" is the go-to word for latinos in the US. That's like saying there's no racism in the US just because people refer to blacks as "african americans".

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[serviscope_minor]

And why not?

Because it will disproportionately affect the right.

Unlucky everyone

[easyTree]

As there's pretty much no such thing as *real* news.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[easyTree]

No, rules only apply to those without the power to evade them.

Censorship

[deecemobile]

This will turn into censorship. According to Wikileaks, Eric Schmidt (therefore Google) is very tight with the Democratic party. This will go beyond just punishing "fake news" - it will change the news. Google and the Dems would have gladly labeled Wikileaks as "fake news" this election. Policing the information of the internet is impossible anyway.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[MrDoh!]

Yeah, I read from this more that "More things are being put in place to control the media YOU see". CNN/MSNBC/everywhere, the wikileaks showed were colluding with the Clinton campaign. So the solution is... more control of what media you get to see? Hmm...

Are you for this but not against deceptive ads?

[BrendaEM]

So many sites have ads that look like news items or download links.
Let's do something about those, too!

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[edtice1559]

The whole point of a search engine is to try to find information. Wrong information greatly reduces the value of the search product. If Google only returned fake news it would be the equivalent of Snopes. And Google's search revenue is much higher than Snopes' is, that's for sure. If Google places ads on fake news sites, they create an internal conflict. Rather than have to deal with that, they've decided that the revenue from fake news sites isn't worth the cost of the internal misalignment and have dropped it. No idea why this is noteworthy at all. There are fake news sites that are trying to make money off of ads. Those are mostly yawners. And there are those with a political agenda. This will probably impact the former but not the latter.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[tsqr]

Technically if you have a clearance it might be illegal to read wikileaks depending on the link used, since that would technically be facilitating the distribution of classified material. Make no mistake about it. Posting something classified on wikileaks does not remotely make it unclassified.

Correct that publicly publishing classified material, whether on Wikileaks, a newspaper, or on Slashdot, does not declassify the material. It's not illegal to read such material whether or not you hold a security clearance; however, if you do hold a clearance and you suspect that classified material has been made public, you are obliged by law to report it to the appropriate authority (usually that would be your Facility Security Offficer).

Re:The onion

[speedplane]

How exactly will try differentiate between satire and fake news? The answer is if course that you cannot.

One is intentionally trying to deceive, the other isn't. Seems straightforward.

Parody and satire

[uncoveror]

I wonder if Google will be smart enough to distinguish parody and satire sites vs. ones that exist to libel and slander political foes. It will be a lot less fun to do my website if I have to beat it over people's heads with THIS IS A JOKE on every story I write.

fake articles on just Donald Trump?

[Dark Fire]

Fake articles seems to be a new "approach" in Internet media that is becoming increasingly common. A title that is either favorable or unfavorable to a particular party with an article that says whose contents are the exact opposite with facts that are based on celebrity quotes or opinions rather than facts. This approach may have been used during the political process in 2016, but I have seen this style of writing growing. It seems to be turning Internet media into a supermarket tabloid across the board. I came across very few articles or videos online for Trump during the campaign. But there were a TON of them for Clinton. Maybe I fit the Clinton demographic rather than the Trump one, I don't know. The Youtube videos were particular frustrating because they would show up every two or three minutes and I couldn't skip any of them even though I had watched them like 100 times (30 second ads!). I was in high school and college in the 90s when Bill Clinton was in office. So I remember the Clinton presidency well. I didn't come across any Clinton ads that were complete fabrications, but quite a few were what I would call "factish". They would present something she did but omit some important details which were very misleading. This only made them more annoying to watch. I hope that both parties have learned their lesson and will stop deciding who is going to win the primary BEFORE people vote. They have picked John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton and all three have lost their bids. You can spend $1 billon dollars running Youtube ads that I can't skip all you want, but in the I am going to vote for who I think is the best candidate, period.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

That's stupid. Why don't you look around Breitbart a little before you fall into that trap. It may be a partisan news site, but it is clearly not anti-Semitic.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Curunir_wolf]

It's being reported this morning that over 3 million illegals voted for Clinton this election and she actually lost the popular vote by 1.7 million. Liberal heads are exploding gloriously.

Are you sure that's not fake news?

How will one tell ?

[Archfeld]

The courts have already decided that so called news programs consist mostly of opinion-tainment anyways how will one tell the fake news from the junk news ? I guess google white as the driven profit motive will decide what is valid and what is not ?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[kwbauer]

Unless Hillary Clinton is somewhere between you and the POTUS on the org chart; then you just say "Not again" and moveon.

Re:Trump didn't win

[avandesande]

Not to mention clickbait works both ways-- "look at the lies alt-(whatever) are saying about (whomever)"

Kind of like the old saw about any publicity is good publicity

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[amicusNYCL]

Mexico has an economy that is only about 20% smaller than that of Russia. Should we now be afraid of them? After all, they're a lot closer to the USA

Well, Russia has around 7,300 nuclear warheads and is led by an ex-KGB guy who thinks that it's his duty to return Russia to the glory days of superpower status, at the expense of the US. I'm having a hard time figuring out how many nuclear warheads Mexico has, but I'm sure there's a comparison there somewhere.

Re: black and white thinking for the fail.

[Xenographic]

Well, this wasn't just a mistake. This is a guy--who is an attorney with no damned excuse not to know this--telling us a clearly false statement about the law. And when he explains why? It's so that you'll get all your information from the media. And what do we find in the material he told us we couldn't read? Oh, we find evidence that his employer was up to no good. Yes, they made a token attempt at addressing the problem. No, we already know several other people who were in on it that they didn't do anything about.

Now if you payed attention when Comey was grilled, you'd know that lying to hide one's guilt is generally seen as evidence that someone is both conscious of their guilt and that they intended to do wrong. If not, go google "comey grilled" and the video is right near the top.

Something like this is actually *below* the idiotic clickbait articles in my book. Intentionally lying from a source many people trust is a lot more worrisome than some idiots in a far-away country making clickbait sites designed to get ad money by peddling outrage articles that nobody really believes.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

That's stupid. Why don't you look around Breitbart a little before you fall into that trap. It may be a partisan news site, but it is clearly not anti-Semitic.

So, when Bannon took his kid out of a school because he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews" and wrote that in an email to his ex-wife, that wasn't anti-Semitic? And no, it's not "he said - she said" when you write it in an email.

Anyway, for your reading enjoyment, here is a list of some Breitbart headlines that Bannon signed off on:

Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew

Lesbian bridezillas bully bridal shop owner over religious beliefs

Teenage boys with tits: Here’s my problem with Ghostbusters

Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage

There’s no hiring bias against women in tech, they just suck at interviews

Pamela Geller’s Muhammad cartoon contest is no different from Selma

Sympathy for the devils: The plot against Roger Ailes

Gabby Giffords: The gun control movement’s human shield

Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

Andrew Breitbart was Jewish and he hired Bannon. Joel Pollak the senior editor is Jewish. Ben Shapiro is Jewish. David Horowitz wrote that article with the headline and he is Jewish. If you happen to look at articles that mention Israel you will see they are all friendly. Larry Solov is Jewish. In fact I think Breitbart (a Jewish name) probably employs more Jewish staff as a percentage than most national outlets. One of it's founding principles was to portray Israel in a positive light that is so lacking in much of society. You can call Breitbart lots of things, some of them warranted. But calling it anti-semitic just shows that you have no idea what you are talking about, and that you have no actual facts to base your opinion on.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Andrew Breitbart was Jewish and he hired Bannon.

Andrew Breitbart wasn't an anti-Semite. He was a fool, out of his depth, and he desperately wanted the support of anti-Semites.

Bannon is an anti-Semite. And a bigot. And a misogynist. See my evidence elsewhere in this thread.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

Bannon is an anti-Semite.

You really have nothing that supports this. Other than the claims of an ex-wife issued during divorce proceedings. Sorry. You lost this one. It's obvious that you're just regurgitating the narrative that you are hearing from your "trusted" media of preference.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

The question is how evenly it will be applied as well as Google's ability to investigate every site on the web as to whether or not what they say is true. It seems more likely that certain disliked sites will simply end up blacklisted and they'll call it a day.

I wouldn't really care if TMZ and BuzzFeed shut down, but something tells me they're not the real targets.

Re:Trump didn't win

[AutodidactLabrat]

NEWSMUCX? Case closed, you lose!

Re:Trump didn't win

[AutodidactLabrat]

Ahh,ignore the above. Too little coffee. My bad

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Other than the claims of an ex-wife issued during divorce proceedings.

See, that's where you're wrong. The emails of Bannon complaining about Jews are part of the court record. They were included during discovery.

Bannon is an anti-Semite, a bigot, and a punk. I posted more evidence elsewhere in the thread.