(2017-02-14) Best Way To Quash Fake News Choke Off Its Ad Money

Davey Alba thinks The Best Way to Quash Fake News? Choke Off Its Ad Money

Moat calls itself the “Nielsen of digital.” It’s a service advertisers (Advertising) use to make sure the right people are seeing and clicking on their ads.

Company executives say Moat’s particular window on the internet—tracking billions of ads every day—gives it the kind of data needed to spot fake news stories as they go viral. As it develops its anti-fake news analytics, it’s also coordinating with journalists and fact-checkers to put human eyes on flagged stories to develop a consensus on which sites deserve the “fake” label. After they make a decision, cutting off the ad dollars is an easy engineering problem.

After Moat’s system flags a potentially fake news story or site, things get more subjective. Moat’s plan is to work with journalists, editors, and fact-checkers to come up with a blacklist—a consensus decision about which sites and stories should count as fake news.

But creating a list is tricky.