Vodafone cracks down on fake news advertising

Telecom company Vodafone said on Tuesday that it was introducing measures to combat the spread of fake news and hate speech related to its advertising content.

So-called 'fake news' items have become a hot topic in recent months as internet service providers and platforms such as Facebook and Google grapple with a rising amount of falsified articles being shared and appearing alongside advertising items.

Vodafone has said their approach towards combating fake news will include a concrete definition of what can be categorised as such.

The UK firm's definition says any article "presented as fact-based news (as opposed to satire or opinion) that has no credible primary source (or relies on fraudulent attribution to a primary source) with what a reasonable person would conclude is the deliberate intention to mislead" will face exclusion from advertising whitelists.

The company added that content in question would have to have the "predominant purpose" of deceiving the reader.

"The test is whether or not the predominant purpose of the entire outlet is to communicate and share this kind of harmful material," Vodafone said.

"An outlet that carries some hate speech or fake news content - but where the majority of content disseminated would not meet the tests above - must not be categorised as warranting exclusion from advertising whitelists on hate speech/fake news grounds."