5 ms·

Popular Local News Sites in the US and Canada Are Fake

35 points by smacktoward 7y ago

RickJWagner 7y ago
"A related trend is the emergence of local news sites in the US that are run by politicians or are closely linked to political causes or entities." I can't help but notice that ABC news spiked the Epstein story, NBC suppressed the Weinstein story (both for 'editorial standards'), yet both blared Kavanaugh allegations nonstop. It's not just small news sources that are steered by politics.
jariel 7y ago
The 'fake news' here might be the Buzzfeed article. First - the sites they are referring to are not 'fake' - they're just spammy. They are sites with stale, outdated information, but it's not 'fake'. Maybe that's why Google indicated 'there was no apparent violation'. Second - there's no evidence presented that there is fraud going on. While it's possible, it's not entirely implausible that the sites are SEO optimised, or have keyword arbitrage going on. They could very well be 'getting real traffic' - and having people interested in their 'old news'. Now - all of this is also ridiculous, but not necessarily in the way implied by Buzzfeed. Buzzfeeds loose characterisation of the content I think is actually problematic.
masonic 7y ago
A Google spokesperson said the Edmonton and Albany sites were not violating any of its policies So, even having their attention called to this fraud, they do nothing.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Are they doing Google Ads fraud or ad fraud not related to Google?
- TheCapeGreek 7y ago
  I'm not as up to date with Google's public opinions on moderating truth (a very sticky thing indeed), but it seems to me they're taking the opposite approach to Facebook (for all its ills and merits). If anyone has more direct info, please post it. FB is getting all the attention these days with truth and whatnot.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    This article has nothing to do with disinformation/"Fake news" It has not much to do with censoring people, and more that this "popularity" of these sites is almost certainly driven by illegitimate means (scripts, botting, popups, malware etc), purely to collect ad revenue. After all who is going to bother with such worthless and out of date articles from a completely unknown "news" org. The fact its extremely obvious, and Google can't even be bothered bodes poorly for the veracity of the online ad ecosystem.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
From the story -- "The Edmonton and Albany sites make the majority of their ad inventory available via Google’s ad network, meaning the tech giant facilitates the programmatic sale of ads on the sites and takes a cut of revenue when ads are displayed. Along with Google, the sites also list their inventory with AppNexus, another large ad network." Basically the people who are getting screwed here are the advertisers, Google gets their cut, the web site gets their cut, and the advertisers just burned a pile of money advertising out into space. It is very sad, and one which takes advantage of the fact that all of the brands have outsourced management of their advertising to third parties. It is like giving your office the manager the ability to approve invoices and sign checks. Never a good strategy.
- ncr100 7y ago
  > the people who are getting screwed here are the advertisers and the readers / users
  - leereeves 7y ago
    The researchers (the source of the story) claim it's an ad fraud scheme and there aren't real readers. > “The fact that no one is trying to correct these errors suggests that real people do not visit this site, otherwise it would be fixed on the first day,” > “Real people have no reason to visit such sites. And if we see on such sites millions of highly busy users, then this can only be advertising fraud,” it said in its report.
    - squiggleblaz 7y ago
      Readers/users are getting screwed, since the money they're spending on Coke is going to feed content farms not intended for human consumption. If advertising revenues were going to legitimate companies, they would have legitimate content to read and use. As it is, they have to pay twice - once for their NYT subscription and once through the cola advertising budget - but only get one benefit.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
ekianjo 7y ago
> The annual losses from ad fraud are estimated at billions, and even tens of billions of dollars. I like it when such estimates are linked to no source at all.
- mrarjen 7y ago
  It's still Buzzfeed, but on wikipedia they do state some of these numbers. Not even sure advertisers mind at this point?

35 points by smacktoward 7y ago

"A related trend is the emergence of local news sites in the US that are run by politicians or are closely linked to political causes or entities." I can't help but notice that ABC news spiked the Epstein story, NBC suppressed the Weinstein story (both for 'editorial standards'), yet both blared Kavanaugh allegations nonstop. It's not just small news sources that are steered by politics.

jariel 7y ago

The 'fake news' here might be the Buzzfeed article. First - the sites they are referring to are not 'fake' - they're just spammy. They are sites with stale, outdated information, but it's not 'fake'. Maybe that's why Google indicated 'there was no apparent violation'. Second - there's no evidence presented that there is fraud going on. While it's possible, it's not entirely implausible that the sites are SEO optimised, or have keyword arbitrage going on. They could very well be 'getting real traffic' - and having people interested in their 'old news'. Now - all of this is also ridiculous, but not necessarily in the way implied by Buzzfeed. Buzzfeeds loose characterisation of the content I think is actually problematic.

masonic 7y ago

A Google spokesperson said the Edmonton and Albany sites were not violating any of its policies So, even having their attention called to this fraud, they do nothing.

ekianjo 7y ago
Are they doing Google Ads fraud or ad fraud not related to Google?
TheCapeGreek 7y ago
I'm not as up to date with Google's public opinions on moderating truth (a very sticky thing indeed), but it seems to me they're taking the opposite approach to Facebook (for all its ills and merits). If anyone has more direct info, please post it. FB is getting all the attention these days with truth and whatnot.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  This article has nothing to do with disinformation/"Fake news" It has not much to do with censoring people, and more that this "popularity" of these sites is almost certainly driven by illegitimate means (scripts, botting, popups, malware etc), purely to collect ad revenue. After all who is going to bother with such worthless and out of date articles from a completely unknown "news" org. The fact its extremely obvious, and Google can't even be bothered bodes poorly for the veracity of the online ad ecosystem.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

From the story -- "The Edmonton and Albany sites make the majority of their ad inventory available via Google’s ad network, meaning the tech giant facilitates the programmatic sale of ads on the sites and takes a cut of revenue when ads are displayed. Along with Google, the sites also list their inventory with AppNexus, another large ad network." Basically the people who are getting screwed here are the advertisers, Google gets their cut, the web site gets their cut, and the advertisers just burned a pile of money advertising out into space. It is very sad, and one which takes advantage of the fact that all of the brands have outsourced management of their advertising to third parties. It is like giving your office the manager the ability to approve invoices and sign checks. Never a good strategy.

ncr100 7y ago
> the people who are getting screwed here are the advertisers and the readers / users
- leereeves 7y ago
  The researchers (the source of the story) claim it's an ad fraud scheme and there aren't real readers. > “The fact that no one is trying to correct these errors suggests that real people do not visit this site, otherwise it would be fixed on the first day,” > “Real people have no reason to visit such sites. And if we see on such sites millions of highly busy users, then this can only be advertising fraud,” it said in its report.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    Readers/users are getting screwed, since the money they're spending on Coke is going to feed content farms not intended for human consumption. If advertising revenues were going to legitimate companies, they would have legitimate content to read and use. As it is, they have to pay twice - once for their NYT subscription and once through the cola advertising budget - but only get one benefit.
squiggleblaz 7y ago

ekianjo 7y ago

> The annual losses from ad fraud are estimated at billions, and even tens of billions of dollars. I like it when such estimates are linked to no source at all.

mrarjen 7y ago
It's still Buzzfeed, but on wikipedia they do state some of these numbers. Not even sure advertisers mind at this point?