News Google to pull advertising from false news sites

If they cut the fake news, that will diminish the daily news content by 95%.

Oh dear.

 

That's the Daily Mail screwed then...

 

Doesn't this set a rather dangerous precedence, I'm not saying fake or misleading news is a good thing but isn't this just a step further down the road of Google playing internet police, government, authority, or whatever.

 

Since this only affects sites using it's ad network, no, not really. Google can (and should) police who is able to profit from it's services, in my opinion.

 

If Google's AdWords network didn't cover 90% of the internet I'd be agreeing with you, however as it does isn't this akin to censorship.

 

the problem will be the same as with pirate sites, the sites will switch to dodgy ad providers and with that we will get an inevitable rise in malware served up through ads.

 

I take your point, however as I understand it Google's ad network covers around 2 million websites out of a total c.900 million sites out there... that's what, 0.22%, not 90% (though, granted, 90% of all traffic is to the 0.22%).

Apologies if I've got the figures wrong, though... I'm not intentionally schmidtbagging (too soon?)

 

I plucked that 90% figure from a quick Google search (is that ironic?) so it could be way off.