With the rising concerns over fake news and misinformation, Google is testing out a new feature. They are testing a new feature that would inform the users if the search results are reliable or not.
Google To Warn Users Of Unreliable Sources
As per the latest reports, Google is testing a new feature to notify the users if a search result is unreliable. This move comes as a notable step by the world’s most popular search engine to give people more understanding towards breaking information that is actively evolving.
The new feature will warn the users if the results they are seeing are changing in real time. Google confirmed that they had started testing the feature a week back. And currently the feature is showing up on only a small percentage of searches which would initially be about developing trending topics.
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Companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook have often struggled to handle the high volume of misinformation, conspiracy theories and unverified news stories that run rampant on the internet.
Reports suggest that the label released by Google will simply warn the users and not block the content which could inform the users about questionable and incomplete information. In the past, they have largely stayed away from taking content down in all but the most extreme cases, citing a commitment to free speech values.
Social Giants Faced Flak During 2020 US Elections
During the Covid 19 pandemic and the 2020 US Elections, many companies took strict actions against taking down many of the popular actions which seemed to be sharing misinformation.
Twitter, for example, released a slew of features ahead of the 2020 US elections cautioning users if the information they were seeing was not yet verified. At the same time, Facebook also released new features to ensure that fake information gets taken down.
For the Covid 19 related updates, Instagram started to add link to reliable sources with each update on the platform.
