Fake 'BBC News' Website Claims Britney Spears Died (Photo : Getty Images/Sion Touhig )
Whether they are doing it deliberately or not, major brands and companies are still helping out to fund some websites that peddle inaccurate news and made-up stories in the internet, by advertising on them.
One of the websites mentioned according to MarketWatch was World News Daily Report, which posted a headline about the affair of Hillary Clinton with Yoko Ono in the 70's. Next to this story was an ad for the 2017 Ram 1500 truck, made by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.
There was also another story that falsely claimed that the former President Barrack Obama banned the sending of Christmas cards to overseas military personnel. And even if The Associated Press debunked this made-up news, the articles remains at Fox News The FB Page, ABC News reported.
In the midst of this growing controversy about the misinformation over the internet, big brands still continue to these websites because they still post their ads on them, but this is not an isolated case, and these big companies claim that they do not intend funding these websites with their ad dollars. This is because their ads are being posted on the websites using computer algorithms which means that it is not always easy for them to take full control or choose the websites that they find questionable.
These automated ads are one of the major sources of income for fake news stories and it said that there is a possibility that it could have influenced voters during the presidential election. This is dangerous because it will make people question even real news. This large network of ads funds millions of online sites with millions and millions of audiences. If they track web users to smaller sites, advertisers can reach them even more cheaply.
The social media has a significant role to play here too. When a fake news story is clicked on Facebook, it will link the user to the original site where the ads will follow, and this results in big brands paying low-rent websites for spreading unreliable and fake news and information.
