Facebook Punishing Pages for Fake News?
Facebook Punishing Pages for Fake News?
Facebook Says No Ads For Facebook Pages That Distribute Misleading and Fake News.
Fake news. That's a phrase used a lot by our current president and while Trump's real news involves debunking global warming, Facebook is taking steps to make sure fake news like that doesn't spread. While I don't like to get political on my website, the truth of the matter is that a lot of people go on Facebook to get their news. Social media sites like Facebook were widely criticized for spreading false news without proper vetting. Without real fact checkers, disinformation often gets spread around causing riots from an uninformed audience. Pressured by the previous administration, Facebook has finally put their foot down on fake news.
Facebook is at Fault
Mark Zuckerberg refuses to take responsibility of such fake news spread deeming the site is "not media company, but a tech company". Facebook has instead relied on users to report slanderous and inappropriate content. The social media giant has now added another category to their reporting allowing users to mark a story as a "fake news story". Facebook has also taken another step partnering with third party fact checkers to combat the spreading of fake news and they have also blocked advertising for these fake news articles as well.
How Do We Tell If It's Fake News?
Well, there's no way to tell other than trusting vetted sources such as scientists, doctors and other scholarly professionals. Below is a video on how to spot fake news by FactCheck.org
With Facebook realizing their impact on the world, information especially false information can get spread easily, making it a publisher of online media. This well known fact has made it simple for many clickbait related sites to come up with false information and according to Wired it feeds on "social media users' gullibility in the chase for ad dollars". Facebook has over a billion users and if it were a country it would be one of the most populated in the world. It's frustrating to see Facebook take responsibility late in the game, but better late than never.
Do You Have to Worry?
Unlike most Facebook changes to pages and ads, this doesn't really have an affect on business pages unless you are sharing content that is questionable. If you are sharing news stories on your page you will need to make sure they come from a reliable source, if you do share fake news then all of your current ads on Facebook will be at risk. Fact checking, doing your own research and making sure all of your news is accurate, will go a long way.
Need Help?
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