Google News introduced on Thursday a new fact check feature that will appear as a tag among every news search result. This incredible innovation will be available on both iOS and Android platforms, and for U.S. and U.K. users, allowing them to know which stories are real and which are not reliable.
According to Digital Trends, publishers will have to put a new line of code to fact-checked articles posted on the web to accomplish this, with each article adhering to some guidelines set by the search company. The fact check tag joins existing news tags as "in-depth", "highly cited" and "opinion."
Google´s Best Feature In Years
"Google News determines whether an article might contain fact checks in part by looking for the schema.org ClaimReview markup. Publishers who create fact-checks and would like to see it appear with the 'Fact check'tag should use that markup in fact-check articles. We're excited to see the growth of the Fact Check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divide fact from fiction, wisdom from spin," said Google in a blog post.
Although this is probably the best feature Google have made in years, it is not appropriate that it is released less than a month before the final U.S. presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, both of them well known for attacking each other with wild statements and accusations. Considering this situation, fact checking their speech will allow people to determine which statements are lies and which are the truth.
Fact-check Feature As A Key Factor In U.S. Presidential Elections
"I always say fact-checking is a compliment to political reporting, not a supplement. If look at discreet statements that politicians make, it's really hard if you're a political reporter covering the latest speech and step back and say 'that's not really true.' You don't have a lot of space to get into that -- but with a fact check, you can take that one statement and really put it under a microscope," Washington Post´s fact checker Glenn Kessler told Engadget.
If this new feature ends up being effective, it could change the history of U.S. presidential elections, and, possibly, even politics around the world. The American electorates will vote on November 8, and just as what happened with the WikiLeaks Email scandal, another tech development could change the outcome of this major event.
