Google has added another feature in its search engine, as a part of its effort to curb the spread of misinformation online, this time to stem the visually misleading information.
The tech giant has added ‘Fact-Check’ labels to the underlying web pages of photos and videos, which appear in a Google search, in order to help people navigate correct sources and make more informed judgments about what they see on the web.
Describing the functionality of the label, Google illustrated an example of a widely circulated set of images which showed the false claim of sharks swimming in the streets of Houston after a 2017 hurricane.
Is that image of a shark swimming down a street in Houston real? Google Images now has ‘Fact Check’ labels to help inform you in some cases like this (no, it was not real). Our post today explains more about how & when fact checks appear in Google Images: https://t.co/YisZuOyGEH pic.twitter.com/aRntlIo6qT
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 22, 2020
In the screenshot, a ‘Fact Check’ label under the thumbnail image results for the claim can be seen. When one taps on these results to view the image in a larger format, a summary of the fact check will appear on the underlying web page.
These labels may appear both for fact check articles about specific images and for fact check articles that include an image in the story. The fact check claims will be highlighted on ‘Search’ itself, to make the content easy to discover.
‘The new labels won’t affect search rankings. Our systems are designed to surface the most relevant, reliable information available, including from sources that provide fact checks,’ Harris Cohen, Group Product Manager said in a statement released by the company.
According to a help page, Google uses an algorithm to determine which publishers are trusted sources. However, the fact checks will also be based on the ClaimReview database established by independent fact-checkers.
Recognizing the work of these people around the globe, the Google News Initiative provided $6.5 million in funding support earlier this year.
