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Fact checking and fake news are a pretty hot topic these days and battling it is a lot easier said than done. Sensationalism and mob mentality only help to fan the flame and make filtering trusted news even more of a challenge. In an effort to further combat shady news, Google is expanding their “fact check” feature to users around the globe in Google search and News.
Last year Google rolled out this feature to users in the U.S. and U.K. that allowed users to check the validity of major news stories via third party sights like Snopes.com and PolitiFact. The fact checker snippets previously were limited to Google News and Weather for Android and iOS but now will also offer the option for major news in Google Search.
One thing to keep in mind here is that the sites checking the facts are third party. They are meant to help users make a more informed judgment on news articles found in search results. The accuracy of the fact checking isn’t in Google’s hands. This is up to the site owners to submit their “fact checking” content to Schema.org for review and then, when approved, will show in results affiliated with the related topic.
At the end of the day it is really in your hands to decide what you believe and what you choose to discard as “fake news” but this is just another step in helping to weed out the rotten tomatoes and get news that is worthwhile and trustworthy.
In all the community collaboration behind the fact checker consists of 115 organizations. You can read more about the process and the groups involved at Google’s blog the Keyword.
