Facebook is finally taking a step to combat fake news

Facebook is hesitant to purge any information from your News Feed — even fake news. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have tools to combat sites that profit from the spread of misinformation.

The company told the Wall Street Journal late Monday that it will ban fake news websites from participating in its ad network, cutting off a significant revenue source. Google enacted a similar policy for its ad service earlier in the day.

One wrinkle: It's unclear how Facebook, which has leaned on user reports to flag content in the past, will identify fake news websites to begin with. A representative did not immediately respond to a request from Mashable for clarification Tuesday.

As BuzzFeed News reported earlier this year, individuals outside of the United States make a lot of money by cynically churning out totally fabricated news catering to extreme partisans — Trump supporters in particular. Right-wing Facebook pages were found to share hoaxes nearly twice as often as left-leaning ones.

The model is simple. Facebook is the world's largest social network, with more than one billion users using the service on a daily basis. Online publishers rely on that audience for ad revenue — if a post goes viral on Facebook, that's a lot of potential eyeballs, meaning a good chunk of change from ads.

Hoax websites rely on uninformed users to share and click content based on sensational headlines. While there's something to be said for individuals becoming a bit more media savvy and thinking twice about the content they're consuming, critics (including me) have argued that Facebook nonetheless bears some responsibility for how news is distributed on its platform. After all: This isn't just about ignorance, it's about bad actors purposefully gaming the system to make profit.

Some Facebook employees apparently agree, as a report surfaced Monday that a splinter group within the company is organizing to stand against the flow of fake news on the platform.