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Facebook Buys Full Page Ads in Germany in Battle With Fake News

Facebook Buys Full-Page Ads in Germany in Battle With Fake News

By Stefan Nicola, Bloomberg | Updated: 14 April 2017 10:23 IST

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Facebook published full-page ads in Germany's biggest newspapers advising readers on how to detect fake news, after Angela Merkel's government pressured the company to do more to combat such content on its network.

The ads, which were printed Thursday by dailies including the mass-selling tabloid Bild as well as Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Axel Springer's Die Welt, contains 10 tips how users can identify news as fake.

"Fake news can be identified as such," the ad reads, which will also be appearing in Der Spiegel's print and online product. "We fight their spread and are giving you some tips how you can recognize whether a news item is true or not."

Merkel's governing coalition has been upping the pressure on social networks to curb the spread of fake news and malicious posts ahead of Germany's federal election on September 24. Her Cabinet last week backed a bill that threatens social networks with fines of as much as EUR 50 million ($53 million) if they fail to give users the option to complain about hate speech and fake news, or refuse to remove illegal content.

The ad's tips, which include advice on scrutinising the headline and the URL of a source, and to look for other stories on the same topic, are also being pushed to Facebook's more than 29 million users in Germany, said Klaus Gorny, a spokesman for the company. He declined to comment on the budget for the ads.

A page in Bild costs about EUR 500,000, and a page in Die Welt about EUR 50,000, according to Axel Springer's Media Impact agency.

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