Fake news has become a perennial problem on social networking sites and some people have been profiting from such ventures.
Facebook has been taking a hard stance on combating fake news and the latest one is aimed at making sure the people that spread it do not get a financial benefit.
Now if Pages share stories that have been marked as false news, they will no longer be allowed to advertise on Facebook. This is another step in curtailing the financial benefit of those Pages that share fake news since currently they don’t allow ads that link to stories that have been marked false by third party fact checking organizations.
Facebook had found out that some Pages using Facebook ads to build their audiences so that they can distribute their fake news more broadly. In this update, if these Pages decides to share several stories that have been marked as fake by third party fact checkers, they will no longer be able to buy ads on Facebook. Facebook has sort of extended an olive branch to them where if they stop sharing false news, they may be eligible to run ads on the platform again.
The company has been trying to curtail the spread of fake news through disrupting the financial incentive like in the new update, helping people make informed decisions when they encounter fake news and build products that curb the spread of fake news. This is a welcome move by the company as they try to make sure its 2 billion strong community is