Can Changes on Google, Facebook and Twitter Bring About the End of Fake News?

Can changes on Google, Facebook and Twitter bring about the end of fake news?

Since the commercialisation of the internet, hoaxes and fake news have been prevalent. But since the 2016 US election, it has come to the forefront and it is difficult for many people to distinguish the difference between what is real and what is fake. The problem is when fake news spreads, it is too late and often leads to the majority of people believing that it is a fact.

It’s become a real headache for internet users and journalists that want to share stories that are backed-up by facts. However, there are a number of internet users who will deliberately spread fake news for their own personal gain.

Google’s initiative

Google has copped an earful from different governments for not doing enough to stop fake news stories being spread. Google’s algorithm works of citation mentions, the creation of content and the links that point to a piece of web content. Their system is ‘merit based’, however the spread of fake news abuses their algorithm.

Google is doing more to address the fake news issue though. Bill Slawski published on SEO by the sea that Google will use Object-level ranking to extract factual information about entities on the web. Google is also looking at the source and citations of the factual information as a part of their Knowledge Graph initiative to validate facts and news as they get published on the web.

Facebook and Twitter’s initiative

Social media has faced the most backlash over fake news. Although the problem primarily comes from its user base spreading the news, the companies are trying to work out ways to prevent unsubstantiated facts from being spread on their platforms. Facebook has improved its vetting methods when it comes to paid promotions. Additionally, the reach of organic Facebook posts is lower and there are more reporting controls that can be triggered by users and assessed by the Facebook team.

Bloomberg reported in October 2017 that Facebook still has a fake news problem. And naturally so, with over 1 billion users on the platform, it is a challenge to vet and verify news stories quickly. But it is heading in the right direction.

Twitter has been facing similar challenges and has been under pressure from different country governments to take action. 2 students in Berkeley in the US received praise after they launched an app that can detect bot accounts that trigger the trend of fake political news.

Unlike traditional news platforms like Reuters who would verify any stories before they would go live, social networks like Twitter allow any content to be published immediately and unverified to a global audience. It’s actually up to the person that is publishing the content to have a moral conscience and push the Tweet button, knowing the impact that the content of the message can have.

Thoughts from within the digital marketing industry.

Digital marketing experts Digital Next work with several websites that publish content daily. There is a huge demand for people to provide new content to their audience in order to keep them coming back. Much of the fake news has spread through people’s desperation to get views on their web content. The more they can push or even cross the ethical line of journalism, the more views, money and traffic their content will make.

Education and vetting is needed to stamp out the rise of fake news. And the responsibility will fall with both the publisher and the platforms that provide a voice to the user base.