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Google to renew Ad policy to bring down fake news sites

  • Move came after backlash over the fake news and malicious content spread during the US presidential election. 
  • Details of the implementation of this change have not been disclosed by the company yet. 
  • The spread of fake news through the AdSense program is a critical matter for the company's business.
Google to renew Ad policy to bring down fake news sites

Alphabet Inc's Google is working on a policy change for preventing websites having misrepresented content from using AdSense advertising network. This move is to stop the spread of 'fake news' and other misinformation distributed on the internet. 

 

This move has been initiated after the search engine giant, Facebook, and Twitter came under fire over accusations of spreading false and malicious information during US presidential elections that might have swayed the voters to elect Donald Trump, the Republican candidate. 

 

Though, this policy change will affect the spread of fake and malicious news but will not have any impact on the Google search results where the fake news or hoaxes will still appear. Also, the company do not suggest that this policy change will create a mechanism to rate accuracy of a particular article. 

 

The aim of this new change is to ensure that the publishers on Google' network have legitimacy and to eliminate the financial incentives that seem to motivate the production of fake news. 

 

On its statement, Google stated "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,”

 

Details of the implementation of this change have not been disclosed by the company yet. 

 

AdSense allows advertisers to post text ads on different websites available on Google's network and it is a major source of income for many such publishers. 

 

Google already has rules on the AdSense program that prevents ads that are pornographic in nature or has violent content. The search engine using a combination of humans and artificial intelligence reviews websites that apply for inclusion in AdSense. Google also monitors the activities of websites that are accepted in AdSense. 

 

The spread of fake news through the AdSense program is a critical matter for the company's business as many of the big brand advisers are unwilling to promote themselves alongside websites having dubious content. 

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