Google is officially launching its fact-checking tools worldwide after several months of beta. Users will be able to check the sources of any search result.
It’s very easy to come across false information online, both in articles and content on social media. Twitter (X) has been displaying “Community Notes” since 2022 to give context to certain tweets with questionable or erroneous claims.
Google launched several tools last year to verify the veracity of its search results and has just announced their availability for the whole world, including France.
Google gives context to its results
Today, April 2, is International Fact-Checking Day. Google therefore took the opportunity to announce the global deployment of its tools allowing it to verify the origin of sites and images in its search results.
The “About this image” functionality allows you to check the history of an image and in particular its original publication date. You can also access their metadata as well as the different descriptions that other sites may have given it. The menu is available via the icon with three small dots in the upper right part of an image.
It is also possible to do the same for any search result, Google will then give you enough context to judge the relevance of a site. The “About this page” function will notably display an extract from the Wikipedia entry if available as well as user reviews sourced from platforms such as TrustedReview or others.
Google takes inspiration from X (Twitter)
Google also announced, like Twitter (X), the integration of a fact-checking module in its search results:
We make it easy to find fact-checks published by independent, authoritative sources across the web. If a fact-checking article is relevant to your search, a preview of that article may appear in your search results.
A result can thus be contradicted or clarified via an extract from these fact-checking platforms (such as Facteur de l’AFP or Les Décoders du Monde). And if you want to go further, Google is officially launching its Fact Check Explorer tool, for journalists and other fact checkers.
This platform allows you to browse the latest information and news which have been verified by independent organizations, but also to add any image to verify its origin.
All these features are now available for nearly 40 languages, including France.