FILE - In this June 11, 2014, file photo, a man walks past a mural in an office on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif. Some Facebook users received an unsettling shock Friday, Nov. 11, 2016, when an unexplained glitch caused the social networking service to post a notice that implied they were dead. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) Facebook is hesitant to purge any information from your News Feed — even fake news. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have tools to combat sites that profit from the spread of misinformation. The company told the Wall Street Journal late Monday that it will ban fake news websites from participating in its ad network, cutting off a significant revenue source. Google enacted a similar policy for its ad service earlier in the day. A representative did not immediately respond to a request from Mashable for clarification Tuesday. As BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year, individuals outside of the United States make a lot of money by cynically churning out totally fabricated news catering to extreme partisans — Trump supporters in particular. The model is simple. Hoax websites rely on uninformed users to share and click content based on sensational headlines.
Facebook is hesitant to purge any information from your News Feed — even fake news. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have tools to combat sites that profit from the spread of misinformation.
The company told the Wall Street Journal late Monday that it will ban fake news websites from participating in its ad network, cutting off a…
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