Google has banned 200 publishers since it passed a new policy against fake news

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/26/google-has-banned-200-publishe.html

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Let the countdown begin until Alex Jones reminds us about 1984 Orwellian media blackouts of the truth.

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Speaking of…

http://thehill.com/media/316252-alex-jones-white-house-offered-infowars-press-credentials

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About f’ing time. And what took so long anyways?

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What I want to know is why sites like BlueJersey.com – which comments on news but also does original reporting – can’t get into the Google News results but all these fake ones could. BJ was called one of the best state political blogs by the Washington Post, and still can’t get in.

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Personally, I think the entire idea of credentialing press is very anti-american. James Franklin, father of the American press simply bought a press and began publishing. No one credentialed him or his star journalist Benjamin Franklin. The elitist idea that one must have a degree in journalism in order to be a member of the vaunted press is hooey.

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I fear that Cory Doctorow will get swept up in this fake news dragnet.

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Someone on another forum noticed Infowars wasn’t in the google NEWS feed, though it would still be in the WEB feed.

I was like, “Good. It isn’t news.”

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From the article: "The company banned the publishers from its AdSense network, an ad placement service that automatically serves text and display ads on participating sites based on its audience."
So, nothing to do with Google News.

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The hero we need.

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Thank you. I completely missed that.

Is it 2004? I think blogs killed that idea.

Didn’t Google withhold ad payments for some websites, and then ban them (Including Fark and BoingBoing) for some perceived infraction that turned out not to be true…but legit sites got caught up in the robotcop sweep and lost income.

http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/you-wont-believe-the-reason-google-pulled-ads-from-these-big-sites.html

So, before you go celebrating google pulling ‘fake news’ sites…you might want to ask “What sites and by what criteria” (Edit: or WHAT is making these choices…a algorithm? or Humans?)

“When they came for the Onion…”

Ah, Paul Horner, good!

Who decides indeed. Are RT and Press TV fake news? What about news wire services like API and AFP where editorial voice specifically dictates how some news must be reported? How about the various news agencies directly owned or controlled by the PRC/PLA?

I wish they’d just fix the cock-up with news personalization. It’s been busted for almost a week now.

I don’t think a huge, rich corporation, with a history of privacy issues and of discontinuing services that people rely on, is the hero we need.

But maybe it’s the one we deserve.

I guess I never really thought about the Weekly World News like that before.

My apologies, I thought you were unironically referring to Google’s role in cutting off the ad spending.

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