Google, in its effort to control the extent of fake news circulating over its domain, has recently updated its Google News guidelines to ban sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin.
The refreshed guidelines assert that the search goliath will block websites from displaying up in search results on Google News if they cloak their country of creation and try to deceive the readers. This may not have an overnight impression, but it may ultimately help Google to take on the expanse of fake news.
It is no enigma that Google’s search engine is a primary source of news passage for many people on the internet. And it is also a fact that not all information accessible on the internet is reliable enough.
Every day, a new news website is coming up which doubles the evens of thriving fake news on the internet.
Google’s newly updated guidelines are:
Sites included in Google News must not misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about their ownership or primary purpose, or engage in coordinated activity to mislead users. This includes, but isn’t limited to, sites that misrepresent or conceal their country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises.
What this means is, if a news website attempts to hide its country of origin or are directed at users in another country under false premises will be barred by Google. This will help the readers to identify what’s real and what’s not.
While we may not take manual action in response to every report, spam reports are prioritised based on user impact, and in some cases may lead to complete removal of a spammy site from Google News results.
-notes Google.
Google has been trying to hinder the expanse of fake news for a long-drawn time now. It all started after contentions of Russia to influence the 2016 US presidential election surfaced.
