[lg policy] Google Quietly Removes “Fake News” Language From Its Advertising Policy

Fri Jan 13 16:43:11 UTC 2017

 Google Quietly Removes “Fake News” Language From Its Advertising Policy
Blog <http://mediamatters.org/blog> ››› January 12, 2017 1:28 PM EST
››› BRENNAN
SUEN <http://mediamatters.org/authors/brennan-suen/285> & TYLER CHERRY
<http://mediamatters.org/authors/tyler-cherry/299>
545
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/12/google-quietly-removes-fake-news-language-its-advertising-policy/214972#disqus_thread>
[image: Print] <http://mediamatters.org/print/743311>
[image: Email] <http://mediamatters.org/printmail/743311>

*UPDATE: See below for Google’s response.*

Google has removed language referencing fake news from its “prohibited
content” policy for websites that use its advertising network. The
policy previously stated that these sites cannot engage in “deceptively
presenting fake news articles as real.”

As of January 10, at least 20 of the 24 fake news-purveying
<http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/14/websites-peddling-fake-news-still-using-google-ads-nearly-month-after-google-announced-ban/214811>
websites flagged by *Media Matters* in December were still using Google’s
advertising network, Google AdSense, despite Google’s November 14
announcement that it would restrict websites from using the network if they
feature misrepresentative content. That announcement drew a wave of
positive press saying Google was combating fake news, but it appears not to
have led to the promised changes.

In December,* Media Matters* shared its findings directly with Google and
asked the company to enforce its new policy. A Google spokesperson
initially took issue with the characterization that it has a policy on
“fake news,” stating that the company had “no policy specific to fake
news.” *Media Matters* responded with a screenshot of Google’s policy page
that explicitly cited “fake news” as an example of unacceptable content
and offered additional evidence demonstrating that the flagged sites were
in violation of Google’s policy.

Google proceeded to leave the ads on the misrepresentative sites, instead
quietly removing the reference to “fake news” from its much-lauded "fake
news" policy.

On December 14, *Media Matters* flagged 24 fake news-purveying
<http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/15/understanding-fake-news-universe/214819>
websites -- websites that share or aggregate demonstrably fabricated
stories packaged to appear as legitimate news -- using Google’s advertising
service exactly one month after Google announced
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/14/google-officials-promised-stop-making-fake-news-profitable-one-month-later-theyve-failed/214812>
its ban. A January 10 review of these websites found that at least 20 of
those pages are still running ads supported by Google AdSense (at least one
of the websites, Observatorial <http://observatorial.com/>, is now
essentially defunct). The hyperlinked list of images at the bottom of
this post
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/12/google-quietly-removes-fake-news-language-its-advertising-policy/214972#examples>
shows screenshots of the sites that were still running ads that utilized
Google's advertising service, which are marked with a blue triangle icon
that reveals the words “AdChoices” when scrolled over and redirect to a
Google ads page when clicked.

At the time that *Media Matters* flagged the fake news-purveying websites
for hosting Google ads, Google AdSense’s official policy on “prohibited
content” included language explicitly noting that websites “deceptively
presenting fake news articles as real” were prohibited from hosting Google
ads. That language has since been removed from the policy page
<https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1348688?hl=en#Misrepresentative_content>
without
explanation (click image to enlarge):

<http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2017/01/11/fn1_2.png>

Both Google and these websites benefit financially
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/12/14/google-officials-promised-stop-making-fake-news-profitable-one-month-later-theyve-failed/214812>
when the sites use the advertising network, which no doubt incentivizes the
sites' creation of popular fake news content.
With Google’s original announcement saying it would ban misrepresentative
content from using its advertising services and the explicit reference to
“fake news” in its prohibited-content policies, the company seemed to be
taking concrete steps to combat the epidemic of fake news. Its public
announcement drew positive press from major news outlets like *The New York
Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/technology/google-will-ban-websites-that-host-fake-news-from-using-its-ad-service.html?_r=1>,*
 *The Atlantic
<http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/facebook-and-google-wont-let-fake-news-sites-use-their-ads-platforms/507737/>*,
Reuters
<http://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-advertising-idUSKBN1392MM>,
and *The
Wall Street Journal
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-bar-fake-news-websites-from-using-its-ad-selling-software-1479164646>*,
all of which hailed the restriction as applying to websites that put out
fake news. But Google’s refusal to take action against websites in
violation of its announced decision about misrepresentative content -- and
its removal of explicit “fake news” language from its policy -- indicates
that the promise to ban these problematic operators might have just been a
public relations move.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1599826c0f654295?compose=15998b5339714ed1
-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write
directly to the original sender of any offensive message.  A copy of this
may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20170113/c3dbc50d/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list