Google launches its anti-fake news campaign to fight against disinformation
Google presented a clear and easy to read document at the security conference, which highlighted the ways it uses to put a stop to the spreading of the false information.
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Google handles 5.6 Billion searches a day , which translates to about 63,000 searches per second at a lightening quick speed, however Google likes to keep it classified how it manages to do so. On the rising ‘fake news’ issue Google proffered itself at the Munich Security Conference to reveal the plans on how it is fighting the ‘fake news‘.
Fighting off disinformation in search and on YouTube is not easy but Google has technology and enough 20 years experience battling spam to do so.
According to the reports, Google Search and News make use of algorithms without any human necessary intervention while determining rankings. End user behaviors are analyzed and the users are asked to rate the quality and helpful nature of results. The feedback is used to improve the ranking of web pages and news articles. CEO Sundar Pichai shared the same information before Congress after Google was accused of altering political search results.
An important fact about Google’s algorithms is that they “do not make calculated reports on the truthfulness of webpages.”Rather , only surveyed and data verified by users is used to give a score of sorts. The number of linked websites which are linking to or referencing a page and authority rank are among the contributing factors.
Combating false information is one of the most delicate parts of Google’s efforts. The company has had several takes on disinformation flowing through search following events like the shooting last fall, making it of the areas where Google has room to improve. According to the company, It is working for training its system to be improve at better recognizing content full breaking news and adjust itself towards displaying more accurate and to the point results, using the “Breaking News” section that has been recently added on YouTube to take as an example. But though there are some improvements, Google still faces many problems with search results on YouTube, including issues where videos based on conspiracies topped the trending results last month just after the Parkland shooting. It’s can be clearly seen that Google is working to improve this, but it would have a long way to go to gain back their users’ trust.
