Countless websites were highly affected after Google and Facebook stepped up their game in eliminating fake news. Earlier last month, two of the biggest internet companies paved the way in cleaning up the web as they were highly criticized for allowing fake news to take its toll on the internet.
Fake news continually spread online in various social media platforms. Google and Facebook already launched their initiative to clear fake news as it continually provides false reports compromising the credibility of reliable websites.
"We have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement as mentioned in NY Times. "Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance."
"The goal of the search is to provide the most relevant and useful results for our users," Andrea Faville, a Google spokeswoman, said in a statement according to NY Times. "In this case, we clearly didn't get it right, but we are continually working to improve our algorithms."
As the fight to put an end to fake news and click-bait websites continually increase, Business Insider sheds light as to how Google's search algorithm managed to amp the rampant spread of these sites. As a result of the algorithmic changes that took place in the past fake news, websites made it to the top of their outranked credible sites.
"I think the reason fake news ranks is the same reason why it shows up in Google's autocomplete: they've been taking more and more user signals into their algorithm," Joost De Valk, founder of Yoast said. "If something resonates with users, it's more likely to get clicks. If you're the number three result for a query, but you're getting the most clicks, Google is quick to promote you to #1 ... Nothing in their algorithm checks facts."
Google and Facebook's movement in eliminating fake news and click-baits is starting to effectively take its toll as the false information circulating around the web is starting to decrease. As a reader, what are your thoughts when it comes to the elimination of fake news websites?
