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Google updates Search tool to take on fake news

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After launching multiple initiatives, Google is now turning to its most powerful weapon to combat fake news- Search, where it receives something around 5.5 billion search queries per day.

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The Search giant has announced some structural changes to its renowned search engine, which include improvements in search rankings and an easier way for people to provide direct feedback, to weed out fake content.

In a blog post, Ben Gomes, Google’s VP of Engineering for Search said, "While we may not always get it right, we’re making good progress in tackling the problem. But in order to have long-term and impactful changes, more structural changes in Search are needed."

To help prevent the spread of offensive or clearly misleading content that has been known to surface in a small subset of queries, Google has improved its evaluation methods and made algorithmic updates that surface more authoritative content. The search engine company is also providing users with a set of handy tools that’ll enable them to provide feedback about the info and results displayed. It is now looking to maximise participation of the community to enhance the overall experience and kicking out those trying to spread malice through wrongful means.

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Last month, Google updated its Search Quality Rating Guidelines to provide more detailed examples of low-quality web pages for raters to appropriately flag, which can include misleading information, unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and unsupported conspiracy theories. These guidelines are expected to help the algorithms in demoting such low-quality content and help make additional improvements over time.

Google uses hundreds of signals to determine which results are shown for a given query—from the freshness of the content to the number of times user search queries appear on the page. These signals have been adjusted to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content.

Additionally, Google is applying the same new parameters for its “auto-complete” function, which finishes search questions based on popularity. Now offensive auto-completes will be eliminated. The company is also providing new ways for users to report on misleading or offensive results that show up in the search engine's autocomplete feature, as well as the "Featured Snippets" that it surface.

Google and Facebook have taken plenty of heat in the proceeding months of the U.S. election for not doing enough to protect users from misleading information, propaganda, and fake news. Since then, both the companies have been trying to take control of the situation with new functions. However, only time will tell, how effective they prove to curb the menace.

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