Google calls out fact-check articles in its News section
A new Fact Check tag takes its place amid stories on Google News along with earlier tags such as Opinion, In-Depth and Highly Cited.
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Google News is adding a new Fact Check tag to articles it indexes, to point readers toward articles that offer to substantiate or debunk claims. It joins other news tags, such as In-Depth, Highly Cited and Opinion, that Google News already adds to some articles.
Google News' fact-check feature weighs in on news stories in the UK.
In a blog post announcing the move, Richard Gingras, the head of Google News, said, "We've heard that many readers enjoy having easy access to a diverse range of content types. Earlier this year, we added a 'Local Source' Tag to highlight local coverage of major stories. Today, we're adding another new tag, 'Fact check,' to help readers find fact checking in large news stories."
The debut of the Fact Check tag comes amid a highly charged US presidential campaign with just under a month to go till Election Day 2016.
The Google News algorithm tags fact-check stories by looking for articles that fit the model for fact checking and that also use special markup language. Among the criteria, Google lists: "Discrete claims and checks must be easily identified in the body of fact-check articles. Readers should be able to understand what was checked, and what conclusions were reached."
The Fact Check tag is launching first on the web, iOS and Android versions of Google News in the US and UK.