Google says it wants to help fight fake news.
Starting today, the company is expanding its work with fact-checking groups—like PolitiFact and Snopes—to a global level, and bringing the fact-checking feature to both its Google Search and Google News features, the Verge reports. Aside from seeing more information from fact-checking organizations, links will also be provided to those sites’ fact checks, according to TechCrunch. There will also more information about the claim available on Search—like whether these fact-checking organizations have ranked it as true, false, or partly true or partly false.
This isn’t the first time Google has worked with fact-checking programs, though this was limited to Google News, and was only featured in the United States and United Kingdom.
However, it is important to note that this update won’t improve the search rank for fact-checking sites, nor does it mean the information will be a part of the “featured snippets,” notes the Verge. In other words, the feature won’t directly address the use of Google’s platform to spread fake news. But Google’s moderation team is apparently making moves to fix this, according to the Verge.
Unlike Facebook, which has also launched anti-fake news initiatives, Google won’t limit itself to a preselected group of fact-checking organizations. Instead, any organization can participate if they add the relevant code to their webpage, notes the Verge.
