Investigation shows how Facebook and Google fund misinformation globally by paying millions of dollars in ad revenue to the operators of clickbait pages
A month after the fall of the democratic government. — In 2015, six of the 10 websites in Myanmar getting the most engagement …
MIT Technology ReviewKaren Hao
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier coverage traced Myanmar's information environment from Facebook's central role in a newly democratic country to fake-news-fueled anti-Muslim sentiment, while a rights-group study later found Facebook amplifying content that incited violence around the coup protests.
The investigation adds the commercial mechanism: misinformation is not only distributed through platforms but can be rewarded through their advertising systems. That connects Myanmar's case to a broader adtech incentive problem rather than a stand-alone moderation failure.
First-order effects
Operators of clickbait pages receive advertising revenue from Facebook and Google, giving misinformation publishers a direct financial incentive to sustain high-engagement content.
Facebook and Google face scrutiny not just over what their systems amplify but over whether their ad-payment systems financially support the publishers behind it.
Second-order effects
Advertisers and adtech intermediaries face greater pressure to distinguish brand-safety controls from the separate question of whether ad revenue reaches known misinformation outlets.
Civil-society groups that had already helped Facebook police rumors in Myanmar gain a stronger basis to press for action against monetization, alongside content enforcement.
Third-order effects
If platform ad systems continue to reward engagement-driven misinformation, platform accountability shifts from takedown decisions toward the design and auditing of revenue-sharing infrastructure.
The pattern points to misinformation becoming an advertising-market governance issue, where distribution, monetization, and advertiser controls must be assessed together.
The trend: Platform misinformation policy is expanding from content moderation toward scrutiny of the advertising incentives that finance high-engagement falsehoods.
Over the past few weeks, the Facebook Papers have reaffirmed that FB has fueled the spread of hate speech & misinfo around the world. But there's a crucial piece missing from the story. FB isn't just amplifying misinfo. The company is also funding it. https://www.technologyreview…
A @techreview investigation has found that Facebook & Google are paying millions of ad dollars to bankroll clickbait actors, fueling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world. Many of these actors *would not exist* without these payments from both platforms.
This new piece from @_KarenHao shows why you should care about the spammy crap filling up your Facebook feed and the feeds of users in countries Facebook doesn't care about. Seems harmless? It's absolutely not. https://www.technologyreview.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Just to say: you wouldn't believe how thorough Karen is when she does these stories. Watertight doesn't even do it justice. That's why they're so powerful. https://twitter.com/...
‘Facebook and Google are paying millions of ad dollars to bankroll clickbait actors, fueling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world’ @_KarenHao on how money trumps trust & safety online, especially in vulnerable communities ↘️ https://www.technologyreview.…
Such an important piece. And 🧵...whilst we knew or suspected much of what was disclosed by the Facebook Papers, this reporting reveals a new unchecked systemic issue. And @_KarenHao is one of the best in the business https://twitter.com/...
An important point. I used to have a slide where I asked people to identify which content came from Macedonian spammers, which came from the Russian IRA, and which was from US hyperpartisan publishers. The challenge was that it all looked exactly the same. https://twitter.com/...
This is such an important article. We're finally starting to learn how Facebook has been financing harmful content on its platform. https://twitter.com/...
I really want this analyzed in connection with their “investments in pipeline” and black creators People dance over one BILLION but the spent 300 BILLION on folks trying to kill us While people “fighting” them give 175k and act like it's a boon https://twitter.com/...
l read this with questions abt how “clickbait” is defined. The phrase can have a very elastic meaning. That said, these are fascinating and very valuable findings that definitely merit the attn of anyone interested in this issue. https://twitter.com/...
This nuance is super important. Nearly $300B of advertising is funding the duopoly and they're funding toxic sludge, “The tech giants are paying millions of dollars to the operators of clickbait pages, bankrolling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.” /1 …
Facebook's Instant Articles news-publishing format may have been useless to legit sites in the U.S., but it seems to have done quite well at underwriting clickbait overseas—some that you can trace to a body count. Great, if enraging, follow-the-money reporting here. https://twitt…
I also worked with former FB data scientist @jeff4llen to identify possible clickbait actors on Facebook, using public data from CrowdTangle and Facebook's publisher lists, which record which publishers are registered in the platform's monetization programs.
We know this because of the in-depth field work of disinformation experts like @riovictoire, who has made her way inside the private forums where thousands of Cambodian clickbait actors trade tools and tips for how to get bigger payouts from FB and Google.
Great, scoopy story from @_KarenHao laying out how Facebook and Google effectively fund misinformation by paying millions of ad dollars to clickbait farms all around the world, often hosted on their own platforms https://www.technologyreview.com/ ...