How Google has doubled down on its war against fake news

As journalists would know, fact checking is one of the key jobs of an editor in newsrooms. In this freewheeling world of social media and search engines, that art has taken a back seat and has resulted in a multitude of controversies. Google, which has found itself in the eye of the storm has doubled down on its crusade against fake news which surfaces on its platform by way of search results. For this, it has introduced 'fact check' for search and its news results. 

"We're able to do this work because the fact check industry itself has grown—there are now more than 120 organizations involved in tackling this issue—but our commitment to this area is not new. In Europe over the last couple of years we've been working with publishers on a number of efforts focused on fact checking. Last week, we announced CrossCheck, a joint project involving nearly 20 French newsrooms and the First Draft Coalition to debunk myths pertaining to the upcoming French elections. In addition, as part of the Digital Initiative Fund, we've provided support for more than 10 projects looking at fact checking and authentication, adding six new initiatives at the end of last year," said Google's Richard Gingras in February. 

The facts are verified from third party sources like PoltiFact and Snopes, which shows up in the form of cards and tag for fact check. "The snippet will display information on the claim, who made the claim, and the fact check of that particular claim," says the company in blog post. 

While the information isn't verified by Google itself, it depends on reputed sources of news using a prescribed markup. That being said, Google is only allowing authoritative sources of information to be a part of this. "Only publishers that are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information will qualify for inclusion," the company said. 

This isn't the first time the company has done something like this. Originally a more muted version of this feature was rolled out to users in US and UK back in October 2016. Back in February this feature was further rolled out a couple of more countries which included France, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. 

With this Google joins the likes of Facebook in a war for filtering content that's not misleading in terms of information. Google and Facebook as the world's largest platforms for published news are now acting like the gatekeepers against fake news which has taken off to disturbing levels off late. This only bodes well for people who are fed up or have been misled by a steady stream of click bait articles.