While the world is scrambling to address fake news, with entire nations actually considering legal options in dealing with it, Google was recently caught committing exactly the kind of thing it pledged to stamp out. Over the weekend, the tech company accidentally allowed crazy conspiracy theories and downright lies to spread through a service called “Featured Snippets.”
As the BBC notes, there were some troubling developments with the feature when snippets of articles started circulating which were written by sources that have provided no factual evidence or sources and have been branded as disreputable on many occasions by legitimate news organizations.
There’s one piece with the title that read “Is Obama planning a coup?” that is accusing the former US president of colluding with China to overthrow the government by the end of his term. There were other articles that contained fraudulent information as well, including one that involved “Proposition 63.” The snippet actually called it "a deceptive ballot initiative that will criminalize millions of law abiding Californians".
To Google’s credit, there was also a link directly under the snippet about Obama’s supposed coup, which debunked the article. Even so, the fact that the snippets actually featured fake news if only for a short period of time is still a sign of how difficult the trend is to stop.
By Monday, Google announced that the fake news incident did indeed happen, CNET reports. The company also acknowledged that despite their best efforts, there will always be fraudulent content that will slip through the cracks.
"Unfortunately, there are instances when we feature a site with inappropriate or misleading content," a spokesperson from Google said.
According to Google, the error was made by the algorithm employed for “Featured Snippets,” which apparently didn’t discriminate between trustworthy sources and ones that were not. By the time the search engine site noticed what had happened, too much time had passed before the problem could be rectified.


Makemation: a Nollywood movie that shows AI in action in Africa
TSMC Japan's Second Fab to Produce 3nm Chips by 2028
Australia's Social Media Ban for Under-16s Sparks Global Movement
OpenAI Executive Shake-Up Ahead of Anticipated 2026 IPO
Reflection AI Eyes $25 Billion Valuation in Massive $2.5 Billion Funding Round
Rubio Directs U.S. Diplomats to Use X and Military Psyops to Counter Foreign Propaganda
Apple's Foldable iPhone Faces Engineering Setbacks, Mass Production Timeline at Risk
Nanya Technology Shares Surge 10% After $2.5 Billion Private Placement from Sandisk and Cisco
Meta and Google just lost a landmark social media addiction case. A tech law expert explains the fallout
Cybersecurity Stocks Tumble After Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI Leak Sparks Market Fears
Samsung Electronics Posts Eightfold Profit Surge Driven by AI Chip Demand
Britain Courts Anthropic Amid US Defense Department Dispute
Federal Judge Blocks Pentagon's Blacklisting of AI Company Anthropic
Microsoft Eyes $7B Texas Energy Deal to Power AI Data Centers
Apple Turns 50: From Garage Startup to AI Crossroads
NASA's Artemis II Crew Arrives in Florida for Historic Moon Mission 



