Google Plans To Disable Adsense Ads On Fake News Sites

People are taking advantage of social networks to make money using fake news. False news stories have become a sore point after the U.S. presidential elections with critics blaming internet companies like Twitter and Facebook for having had an influence on the outcome of the elections as a result of the fake content including the use of photoshopped images that went viral.

As a result of this, Google no longer wants placement of its ads on sites distributing fake news.

“We've been working on an update to our publisher policies and will start prohibiting Google ads from being placed on misrepresentative content, just as we disallow misrepresentation in our ads policies,”. “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.”

Google evidently expects that the threat of a cut in revenue from ads will dissuade sites from publishing fake content.

You can check out the Adsense policy here.

By removing a potential revenue stream, it will make the business of fake news a bit less lucrative.

Facebook has also updated its policy to rule out fake news sites from using Facebook Audience Network, which places ads on websites and mobile apps.

What's your take on this?