US midterm elections: Facebook' s fake news problem is bigger than hoaxes

Experts question whether new techniques are being missed

In February, the YourNewsWire page on Facebook was at its peak popularity, boosted by its salacious post claiming that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, was Fidel Castro’s love child.

That story, shared 1,800 times, represented exactly the kind of content Facebook Inc. had promised to clean up on its site -- and which YourNewsWire prolifically produced. It was created to drive attention, and therefore advertising revenue. It was also probably false.

YourNewsWire is still publishing. But its stories aren’t going viral on Facebook anymore, and the website is finding it more difficult to make money. In the case of YourNewsWire, at