Litmus test for Google, Facebook

How social giants are trying to weed out fake news and propaganda in the run-up to the LS polls

Facebook, Google and Twitter, are introducing new measures to introduce transparency to political advertising. India, with its upcoming general elections, will be a crucial test site. 

These three are the most important global news dissemination platforms, with over two billion people using them as primary news sources. They also have a hammerlock on online advertising, with Google and Facebook owning dominant marketshares in specific areas, while Twitter is a distant third. Apart from their eponymous properties, Google also owns video content platform, YouTube, while Facebook is the owner of Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Barrack Obama’s first presidential campaign of 2008 was an early