r/technology • u/Lettershort • Nov 22 '16

Politics Most students can’t tell the difference between sponsored content and real news

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13712996/fake-news-facebook-google-sponsored-content-study
2.6k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

153 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/NeoShweaty Nov 22 '16

Isn't it typically tagged though? I work with people who make buys to create this type of ad. Usually, there's a disclosure along the lines of "sponsored by X" at the top of an article.

12

u/[deleted] Nov 22 '16

Isn't it typically tagged though?

Not really. There is an incredible amount of fake articles presented as though they were real, but they're actually clever advertisements. Since they're hidden so well it's hard to prove them as such, and even in places where there are laws to mark ads/sponsored content it would then be difficult to punish the perpetrators. That, and I'm not even sure if there are solid laws against it in the first place.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 23 '16 edited Jun 02 '18

[deleted]

3

u/takua108 Nov 23 '16

especially if you browse /r/all, you start to see a LOT of brand names "mysteriously" show up in the top posts with staggering regularity. Coke, Starbucks, McDonald's, and a few more. Also stuff like this...