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Google Inc.,
in Mountain View, Silicon Valley, California. United States.
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This
article originally appeared on AlterNet.
Google
released its new tool “Fact Check” this week.
It is designed to combat fake news on the internet. The move is a clear response to the post-election outcry over the spread of false news reports, their probable influence on the 2016 presidential election and their negative affect on democracy.
It is designed to combat fake news on the internet. The move is a clear response to the post-election outcry over the spread of false news reports, their probable influence on the 2016 presidential election and their negative affect on democracy.
When
a user enables the tool, news stories Google deems questionable come with
fact-checking tags in Google’s main search results as well as Google News
results, worldwide. These stories are given a “fact check by…” label with a
link to a fact-checking site such as Politico or Snopes, as a means of
red-flagging questionable content. Frederic Lardinois breaks down how
the new feature looks and works in a recent Tech Crunch article.
As
Weston Williams notes in an April 7 article for Christian Science Monitor,“Over the
past few years, sites such as Google have had to walk a fine line between
policing false claims and supporting basic principles of free speech online.”
As Google has come under fire for perpetuating the spread of baseless, harmful stories (like Holocaust denial articles and racist rants, among other problematic search results), the new tool appears to be Google’s attempt to navigate that line of information ethics.
As Google has come under fire for perpetuating the spread of baseless, harmful stories (like Holocaust denial articles and racist rants, among other problematic search results), the new tool appears to be Google’s attempt to navigate that line of information ethics.
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