This Tuesday was International Fact-Checking Day. The opportunity for Google to announce new upcoming features to fight against false information. Like X and its “community notes”, from 2022, the search engine will put in place tools to “quickly evaluate information and obtain key context to give meaning to what you see online “.
Concretely, when arriving on a new page, the Internet user will now discover the “Find out more on this page” tab. “This will bring up information about the website, such as how Wikipedia describes it (when the page is available) and what other Internet users have said about the site. With more information on the website, you can make a more informed decision about whether to visit it,” says Google.
Light on fact checking
This new functionality is also accompanied by better highlighting of fact-checking articles produced by independent fact-checking organizations. For example, if you wonder if the vanilla flavor of ice cream is really made from beaver anal glands, Google will now be able to pull up an article produced by our fact checking unit, Fake offon this subject.
The Fact Check Explorer tool will allow journalists to go further on a specific theme. “When you search for a topic, you can easily find fact-checks that have been investigated by independent organizations around the world.”
More transparency on images
Regarding images, Google is trying to protect itself. While the search engine launched its SynthID tool in the summer to recognize an image generated by artificial intelligence, it will also be possible to find out more about the image. By clicking on the three dots next to the image, the Internet user will be able to discover its history, sources and metadata of the image, if available.
These latest tools were launched last year in English. Given its success, the search engine decided to extend it to more than 40 additional languages, including French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Vietnamese. “These tools can help you get the context you need to be more confident in what you see online, whether it’s checking an image or the online source you’re reading,” concludes the search engine. research.