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Google Bans 200 Publishers From Its Ad Network (recode.net)
Since it passed a new policy against fake news, Google has banned 200 publishers from its AdSense network, an ad placement service that automatically serves text and display ads on participating sites based on its audience. "The ban was part of an update to an existing policy that prohibits sites that mislead users with their content," reports Recode. From the report: Not all 200 publishers were swept up as part of the effort to root out fake news sites. Publishers were banned in November and December and included sites that impersonate real news organizations through shortened top-level domains, according to Google's 2016 "bad ads" report, normally released at the beginning of each year. So-called fake news publishers will sometimes take advantage of ".co" domains by appearing similar to legitimate news sites that would normally end in ".com." Google declined to provide a listing of the banned sites. Separately, the annual report on violations of advertising policy also included data on ads removed by Google. The company reported that in 2016 it took down 1.7 billion ads for violations, compared to 780 million in 2015. Google attributes the increase in ad removals to a combination of advertiser behavior and improvements in technology to detect offending ads. 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.
No they're not. And I'm not even defending Breitbart here. CNN just aren't much if at all better.
CNN still give -- for now -- the appearance of responsible and reliable journalism. You look at a well edited, special effects laden, 24/7 cable news broadcast and you can't help but think that there must be teams of dozens behind the scenes tirelessly fact-checking, copy-editing, digging, editing, and verifying so that you the viewer get nothing but the best. CNN are certainly in no hurry to dismiss this good first impression.
But scratch under the surface and the glossy coating reveals itself to be paper thin. Since the beginning, CNN did little more than broadcast AP news feeds on television, doing little in house reporting or journalism itself. Nowadays, with the collapse of investagative reporting an faact-checking in the media generally, CNN like most is forced to rely on ever cheaper and less reliable sources of information to pad out its 24 hour news cycle. Blogs, tweets, frickin' reddit posts all used directly as sources, or more commonly, were used as sources, by the sources, by the sources, that CNN used as a source.
These days misinformation and fakes news takes a typical life-cycle:
Begin as a tweet/post/email somewhere on the wild, wild, web ;
Get picked up by a part-time blogger or small speciality news/trade blog (this is often the one and only time the story gets any "journalistic" scrutiny whatsoever) ;
Get re-picked up from the smaller blogs by a larger blog come news site like Gawker, Breitbart, Huffington Post, etc;
From here, if the story takes, get picked up by online editions of traditional outlets like CNN, the Guardian, BBC, etc;
One short hop and a "slow" news days gets you on the CNN ticker or even right there on air in your very own segment;
The only remaining step now is to get on the print edition of the likes of the New York Times or Washington Post, etc, who do have some reputation to consider before publishing. Though, as evidenced by recent scandals, fact-checking and general bullshit detection at even these former pillars of journalism is also in steep, possibly terminal decline.
In the middle -- and beginning and end -- of this entire process is the Internet and the effect it has had on media revenue over the last 20 years. In particular, there stands Google, like a Colossus, now deciding just who in this Ceremony of Bullshit Anointment is or is not worthy of the Grace of ad-sense based revenue. While some may speak of a market based solution, I tend to think giving mega-corporations leverage like this over what's left of the 4th estate is less than likely to lead us back to the promised land of milk and independent journalism.
I heard a story on NPR categorizing misleading and untrue news into four categories (which I agree with). Each of these four are often called "fake news" these days but it's obvious only one is.
(1) True fake news. News that has no basis at all and is created to be spread on social media to make ad dollars. These are things like pizza-gate and "pope endorsing trump."
(2) Click bait. The story may be true or somewhat true but headline extremely misleading.
(3) Satire. The onion.
(4) News that contains facts but they are out of context and many other important facts are omitted to promote a narrative.