When commuting to work and back to home, I sometimes listen to radio news stations to help pass the time. In the past few months, I have listened to some very weird phone calls made to those radio news stations. In almost all of such phone calls, the listener founds some fake news website (or parody news website), was very much shocked to read the news articles and then called the radio stations in a fit of rage. But the news show host then soon finds out about it and explains that the listener has become a victim of fake news.
Thousands of these fake news websites have sprung up so fast in the past few months that it is becoming increasing confusing for an ordinary person to know which website is real and which is fake. The fake news sites are designed very carefully and are made to look like the real news sites making it very difficult to see through them.
One way to stay away from fake news is to stick with the mainstream news websites belonging to some of the most popular newspapers and TV news channels. Google has also taken a step to curb the spread of fake news and protect the users from such bogus news sites.
Now whenever you search Google for something that could lead to fake news sites, Google displays a fact-check box on top of the search results. The fact-checking for the search term is done with the help of popular fact-checking services like Snopes and Politifact. In the fact-check box, a summary of the fact-checking results is displays, for example, the link to the fact-check website, claim, who made the claim and whether the claim turned out to be true or false.
Conclusion: Google fact-check can protect from the fake websites by providing the users a summary of the fact-check information within the search results. This feature will be made available all over the world in the coming months and can really curb the rise of fake information on the internet.
snopes and politifact?, are now fact checking sites? and where are they getting their facts from? haha. now that’s funny, stop it, you’re making me cry.