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Google News Will Purge Sites Masking Their Country of Origin (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg:
Google moved to strip from its news search results publications that mask their country of origin or intentionally mislead readers, a further step to curb the spread of fake news that has plagued internet companies this year. To appear in Google News results, websites must meet broad criteria set out by the company, including accurately representing their owners or primary purposes. In an update to its guidelines released Friday, the search giant added language stipulating that publications not "engage in coordinated activity to mislead users."
Additionally the new rules read: "This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises." A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet. Russian Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed organization, used that technique to reach an audience of nearly 500,000 people, spread primarily through Twitter accounts, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Additionally the new rules read: "This includes, but isn't limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises." A popular tactic for misinformation campaigns is to pose as a credible U.S. news outlet. Russian Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed organization, used that technique to reach an audience of nearly 500,000 people, spread primarily through Twitter accounts, Bloomberg reported earlier.
None of the "fakeness" came from the article, only by people repeating the information and adding hyperbole.
Or it could be the other way around, the article isn't fake because it's actually repeating accurately the fake hyperboles and the tenuous associations made by others.
For instance, take a look at this paragraph:
Some are even linking the spirit cooking revelation to claims that the Podesta emails contain “code for child sex trafficking” that is hidden behind mentions of types of food.
Is it false? Probably not. No doubt, some anonymous wacko on some right-wing bulletin board does believe this.
Or what about this?
Reports that FBI agents see Hillary Clinton as “the antichrist personified” now make a lot more sense.
It even links to another article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us...
But when you dig into that second article, the sources are:
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record...
Which isn't to say that anonymous sources can't be used sometimes. Anonymous sources certainly do have a place.
But usually, anonymous sources are used to confirm a statement of fact, not a personal opinion. Also, anonymous sources limit themselves to few select senior officials, or to people very close to those senior officials. After all, the FBI only has ~35,000 current employees (and who knows how many former employees). The way that quote is written, it could have been taken from any one of those former and current FBI people.
And after a certain point, you have to admit that the article is just repeating gossip. And gossip is fine on page six of Gossip Girl, and it is fine on those papers you find at the supermarket checkout counter, but those papers aren't exactly delivering the news.
And you don't have to take my word for it. Alex Jones himself, the official face for Infowars, admitted in his divorce proceedings that he was just playing a character on TV and that he didn't actually believe many of the things he was saying on InfoWars.