'It's hurt my wallet' — How one fake news publisher is surviving after Facebook crackdown
“There’s definitely been a huge change, a dramatic change,”
Horner told USA TODAY by phone last month. “It’s hurt my wallet for sure with
how difficult it is now to get something to go viral and people so quick to
call things fake news."
Facebook and Google came under fire late last year
for allowing their networks and advertising programs to distribute and
amplify fake news stories during the U.S. presidential election. In response,
they said they've been cracking down on false stories and hoaxes, inking
deals with fact-checking organizations, making it easier for users to
report fake stories and choking economic incentives for fake news producers.
The snowball effect of these measures has been felt by Horner, the owner of
ABCNews.com.co, CNN.com.de, the St. George Gazette and about 13 additional fake
news domains. He's been interviewed by almost every major media outlet
since the election and is even writing a book about fake news. He told
The Washington Post after the election that he was making nearly
$10,000 a month from fake news alone.
After authoring widely shared fake stories about the
entire Amish population voting for Trump and Twitter deleting Trump’s account,
he told The Washington Post he felt Trump was elected because of
him — a sentiment he now disavows.
Horner said these days almost all of his stories that go
viral on Facebook get disputed and his most popular sites get marked as spam.
Three of his sites, including ABCNews.com.co and CNN.com.de were removed from
Google's ad network. He would not provide USA TODAY with exactly how many
shares, views and dollars he’s lost since Facebook and Google started cracking
down on fake news. But he did say that all have slightly decreased.
“If people know the article might not be true then
they’re less likely to read it or if they think it’s a gag or a joke
they read it as that and then they don’t share it,” said Horner, who
lures readers to his websites with a salacious headline then pockets ad
revenue from the page views.
Business is tougher
now for everyone else too. Several fake news sites have shuttered in the
past six months or stopped publishing stories entirely. Jestin Coler,
who was named the "king" of fake news by NPR, has "retired" from the
business and took the widely popular NationalReport.net and the Denver
Guardian with him. In total, 28 fake news sites have shut down in the
months following the election, according to BuzzFeed News.
Still,
fake news remains a lucrative business, as digital advertising networks
find it difficult to enforce their policies, allowing fake news
producers to monetize. Plus, fact-checking organizations tasked with
debunking fake news may at times be too slow to react. Four
fact-checking organizations partnered with Facebook told USA TODAY they
debunk one or two fake stories a day at most.
“It’s
like playing whack-a-mole, as soon as a fake news site is identified
and threatened, it can just refashion itself,” said Melissa Zimdars, a
communications professor at Merrimack College in northern Massachusetts.
“They (Facebook and Google) have a huge role in this — and it’s one
where we’re only seeing the beginning of them acknowledging.”
The
two Internet giants, Facebook and Google, have tried a combination of
humans, algorithms and partnerships to flag fake news — without stepping
into the controversial arena of censorship.
In early December, Facebook announced
it would link up with third party fact-checkers: Snopes.com, FactCheck.org,
Politifact, ABC News and the Associated Press to visibly debunk fake stories
flagged by users. Stories deemed fake by these fact checkers then appear lower
in the News Feed.
The social media giant has also limited
fake sites from buying ads and upped its detection of fake profiles
that help fake news spread. Links shared en masse by spammers also get a lower
ranking in the News Feed, the company announced
last month.
Facebook hasn’t released specific data, but the company’s vice
president of product management, Adam Mosseri, said there’s been a
“decrease” in fake news on the platform at the International Journalism
Festival in early June.
Google in January said it had removed
some 200 sites from using its AdSense program. Website owners using
AdSense pick which kind of ads they want displayed and where. Google's software
then does the grunt work of populating available website space with those ads.
In April, the company also changed
its search algorithm to de-prioritize “clearly misleading content” and made
it easier for users to report fake stories populating search results.
But these tactics don't come without problems.
"No
silver bullet"
When users on Facebook report fake
news, fact-checking organizations have access to a program that displays which
stories are being flagged the most often. Although they don’t see exactly how
many people have reported each story, when multiple organizations debunk a
story, Facebook adds a “disputed” tag to the link. That story is then ranked
lower in the News Feed.
Aaron Sharockman, the executive
director of Politifact, told USA TODAY he sees about 200 flagged stories per
day. A small amount of those stories are patently false, he said. The rest are
either completely true stories reported by trolls or misleading — but not
necessarily false — hyper-partisan clickbait.
Waiting for enough users to report a
particular story may take too long. By the time two fact-checking organizations
research and debunk a story — even if it’s the next day — “it may be too late
and the damage is done,” said David Lazer, a professor at Northeastern
University who has done extensive research on fake news.
“You have a bunch of humans that
have to do their homework,” said Lazer. “That kind of system is slow and open
to manipulation.”
Lori Robertson, managing editor at
FactCheck.org, told USA TODAY the organization debunks between two and three
articles per week for the Facebook partnership. She added that the
partnership with Facebook has made the non-profit shift more resources to
debunking fake viral claims.
Similarly, Sharockman said Politifact fact checks one or two
fake stories per day for Facebook. The Associated Press does “a handful a week,
often many more,” said AP social media editor Eric Carvin. ABC News has
debunked a total of two dozen stories since January.
“We’re seven people total and we’re also fact checking a White
House that’s certainly making a lot of news, so we’re getting to one or two
things, but we’re only getting to one or two things,” Sharockman said. “That
means it may take a few days before we get to fact check even a popular story.”
In a statement, Facebook said it is using a
"multi-pronged approach" to combat fake news.
"There’s no silver bullet solution, which is why we’ve
deployed a diverse and strategic plan," the statement reads.
Advertising networks
The same St. George Gazette that published the story about
Trump legalizing the hunting of bald eagles as well as another widely debunked
story about Trump saying he wanted to cancel Saturday Night Live, was
still running Google ads as of July 11.
After this reporter told a Google spokesperson the St. George
Gazette appeared to be violating its policies, the company removed Google ads
from its website.
Google's AdSense policy doesn’t specifically target
fake news, it only addresses “misrepresentative content” or deception.
Only sites that masquerade as legitimate news organizations, meaning
they don’t have a disclaimer claiming to be satire, are in violation of
Google’s policies. The St. George Gazette does not have a disclaimer.
Other
advertising networks have similar policies against deception. But even
when there's a clear cut violation — as was the case with Horner's St.
George Gazette — the sheer number of fake news sites is difficult to
keep up with, advertising networks say.
Revcontent,
an advertisement service used by used by Forbes, Newsweek and Reuters,
according to its website, also took similar action when notified the St.
George Gazette was using its services. It’s also the most popular ad
service used by fake news creators, according to an April BuzzFeed News analysis. |
| An example of a Revcontent ad. These are the most frequently used on fake news sites, according to an April BuzzFeed News Analysis. (Photo: Screenshot) |
In a statement to USA TODAY, Katherine McDermott,
Revcontent's brand manager, said that its a challenge to keep up with
violations when content can be changed at anytime without the company
knowing, explaining why some fake news sites end up with Revcontent ads.
She compared Revcontent to YouTube, saying that "If YouTube was to fact
check every video on its site, it would be overwhelming to say the
least."
Horner also uses MGID, a Los Angeles-based
ad network, on the St. George Gazette. MGID said it would remove the ads
from the site after an inquiry from this reporter.
 |
| An ad from Los Angeles-based advertising agency MGID on the St. George Gazette. (Photo: Screenshot |
“Fake news sites are prohibited at MGID. We fall onto some because we
don’t have the internal resources to validate what is considered fake or
not,” Michael Korsunsky, MGID’s chief marketing officer, told USA TODAY
in a statement
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