With the effects of the fake news phenomenon still being felt throughout the world, Google is adding a new fact-checking feature to Search and News results.
Pulling information from PolitiFact, a website dedicated to fact-checking U.S. politics, as well Snopes, another fact-checking website, this time dedicated to debunking urban legends, the company will now display information on whether something a website or news piece claims is accurate.
Google first added fact-checking functionality to Search back in October of last year. At that point, the feature was only available to search engine users in the U.S. and U.K. In addition, at that point, Google had only partnered with Jigsaw. The company later expanded the availability of the feature to other countries this past February.
Notably, the fact checks do not come directly from Google; instead, the company is depending on third-party organizations to do the hard work of vetting information. The company also notes its sources may sometimes contradict one another. “This information won’t be available for every search result, and there may be search result pages where different publishers checked the same claim and reached different conclusions,” says the company. “Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree.”
[source]Google[/source][via]The Next Web[/via]
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