If Facebook has a fake news problem it's not in small part because Facebook users will share fake news articles more than real news. Google's decision to not se

If Facebook has a fake news problem it's not in small part because Facebook users will share fake news articles more than real news. Google's decision to not serve AdWords on fake sites is because those sites were taking advantage of the high traffic fake news generates to make money. Fake news is popular. And the entire social economy is based on facilitating that which is popular. Because the more eyes you can drive to your content the more advertising you can sell. While Google vilifies the website for making the fake news, they also profited by selling the AdWords those sites hosted. While Facebook says it's difficult to distinguish legitimate news from fake news, they make more money from the frequently shared fake news than the less popular real news. The conflation of article content with advertising gives the advertising brokers a disincentive to prevent fake articles. Until readers stop clicking on the fake stories, but one glance at a typical supermarket checkout aisle will tell you that isn't going to happen. If Google or Facebook are serious about not encouraging fake news they will stop using the content of a webpage to drive the price of ads. But that obviously isn't going to happen as targeted advertising is their raison d'etre. TLDR, Facebook has met the enemy, and he is Facebook.