Google Raises Stakes In War Against Fake News, Fraudulent And Offensive Search Results Flagged

As one of the principal offenders in helping to spread fake news and offensive content on the web, Google has been on the receiving end of criticisms pertaining to the two issues for years. The tech company had been sluggish to respond to these criticisms for the most part until recently. Now, it has even started flagging search results that either feature fake content or are intended to be offensive.

One of the things that make stamping out fake news and offensive content so challenging is the matter of context. Short of going through each and every article, video, or headline one by one, it can be difficult to know which ones should be flagged and removed, and which ones shouldn’t. With over 10,000 humans at its disposal, this is exactly what Google has set out to do, The Verge reports.

With an army of screeners on hand, the tech company normally uses these independent contractors to score search results by going through batches of searches and then rating them based on Google’s guidelines. On Tuesday, these workers were given a new target: fake news and offensive content. This makes sense. In a war, you need an army to win.

Of course, Google isn’t going to rely solely on these contractors to get the job done until the end of time. As Search Engine Land reports, this is simply a way for the tech giant to teach its algorithm to better identify content with offensive and inaccurate content.

It’s also important to look at the semantics being used in the fight against fake news. As Google exec Paul Haahr notes, keeping the targets specific is the key to what they are trying to achieve.

“We’re explicitly avoiding the term ‘fake news,’ because we think it is too vague,” Haahr said. “Demonstrably inaccurate information, however, we want to target.”