Google And Facebook Help France Stamp Out Fake News

With the growth of internet access came the spread of fraudulent information. Recently, the prevalence of fake news has been tagged as one of the reasons for President Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, which has put other world leaders on edge. As a result, countries like France are now working hard to eradicate fake news with Google and Facebook helping.

France is about to hold its Presidential election and the country is concerned that it won’t be a battle of principles but a battle of misinformation. This is why news organizations in the country are working with both Facebook and Google in order to filter out any content that is deemed inaccurate, Reuters reports.

A total of eight news organizations will be working with the tech giants including Agence France-Presse, a TV news network and L'Express, a French newspaper agency. The purpose of cooperating with the established news media companies is to make sure that no or at least, very little fake news content ever makes it on the newsfeeds of Facebook users in the country.

With over 24 million French users, the influence of the social network in the country is not negligible. If enough of those users are influenced by any kind of fraudulent information with regards to one candidate or another, it could change the results of the presidential election completely.

Just to prove how seriously the French are taking this issue, it is opening a service called CrossCheck, with the sole purpose of rooting out fake news, PC World reports. Its immediate task is to screen information on social media and the internet during the French presidential election. Once it is done, however, it’s more than likely that its influence will spread all over the world.

EU countries are particularly worried about the prevalence of fake news. Some of the member countries are even taking legal steps to make social media and tech companies liable with regards to the growing impact of the trend.