Google built its reputation by helping people sift through a deluge of information. Now it’s trying to help them find the facts.

Just in time for Wednesday’s final presidential debate, Google News will begin giving fact-check-style articles — the kind that aim to validate or debunk statements made by a candidate or elected official — a specific label, with similar ones highlighting in-depth stories or local coverage of major events.

It’s a move that could help ensure Google News remains a vital resource for political news — but one that could also expose the tech giant to allegations of partisan bias.

Earlier this year, Facebook found itself mired in controversy when tech news site Gizmodo reported that former contractors who worked on the social network’s “trending topics” feature suppressed stories about conservative topics and from conservative outlets.

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No one accuses Google of bias when its search engine ranks news articles based on their relevancy to a user’s query. So it’s possible the Mountain View, Calif., firm won’t face scrutiny when it applies a new filter to emphasize fact checks, said Robert Hernandez, a digital journalism professor at USC.

“They have always, through SEO [search engine optimization] given the ability to have the cream rise to the top,” he said.

But Google may take criticism based on the publishers it deems eligible for its fact-check label.

To qualify, stories must have easily identifiable claims and conclusions, and the analysis must be “transparent about sources and methods, with citations and references to primary sources,” according to Google. Headlines must indicate the story is a fact check and the code underlying the web page must include specific programming language so Google’s algorithm can find it.

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But there is some element of human judgment — Google says the organization publishing the story must be nonpartisan with “transparent funding and affiliations” and can’t target one person or entity in its fact checks.

Such rules would disqualify campaign-run fact checks, like the ones Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has touted at debates.

In question, though, are media-run fact checks. A Google spokeswoman said newspapers like the Los Angeles Times could use the fact-check tag. But when asked whether conservative news site Breitbart News or progressive publication Mother Jones would be eligible, she declined to comment and referred back to the company’s guidelines.

If Google isn’t consistent in the way it enforces its rules, it could pose a problem, said Finn Brunton, assistant professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU.

“It’s a brilliant program, but at its heart, it’s a program that has to rely, at least in some degree, on people making those calls,” Brunton said.

If sites don’t meet the company’s criteria and try to obtain the fact-check tag anyway, Google said it could ignore the coding language or remove the site from Google News.

Google’s algorithm puts the burden of proof on publishers, making the company less likely to run into allegations of bias than Facebook, which at first relied on an editorial staff, said Susan Bidel, a senior analyst at Forrester who covers digital media.

“They’re not picking a side,” she said. “They’re saying this publisher is adhering to this set of guidelines or they’re not. If they’re not, then they won’t have the tag.”

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But algorithms aren’t infallible. After the controversy about Facebook’s “trending topics” feature, the Menlo Park, Calif., social media giant said it transitioned to a more “algorithmically driven process” that would allow for more topics to be covered. Then hoaxes began surfacing on the feature, including a conspiracy theory about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

With its expertise in search, Google is well-positioned to spotlight the best content, Hernandez said.

“With a lot of misinformation, we turn to diverse sources to get informed,” he said. “Google is one hell of a player in that space.”

The sheer amount of information, both true and false, on the Internet could make Google’s new label useful and effective, Brunton said.

Google and Facebook “set out to organize and make available the world’s information … and the way in which they’ve done that has transformed them into de facto news organizations,” he said.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

For more business news, follow me @smasunaga</s>WASHINGTON: Google is adding “fact check” tags to its news articles, introducing the feature amid a US presidential race roiled by heated disputes over the accuracy of information.

The move, announced Thursday, will allow readers on Google news applications and websites to click on links to check facts where claims have been evaluated by fact-check organizations.

The new feature is being introduced amid a war over facts between many major media outlets and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

It also aims to stem the spread of “fake” news that may spread through social media.

“We’re excited to see the growth of the fact-check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin,” Google news chief Richard Gingras said in a blog post.

Google News “determines whether an article might contain fact checks” using an algorithm that evaluates claims and by seeking websites “that follow the commonly accepted criteria for fact checks,” the statement said.

Bill Adair, a Duke University journalism professor and founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning site PolitiFact, called the Google announcement “a huge step for fact-checking.”

Trump has forced fact-checkers to work overtime with a seemingly relentless stream of untruths and exaggerations about his past, and he has hit back at the media for damning revelations.

On Thursday, Trump savaged US media for reporting “outright lies” that he groped and forcibly kissed women who came forward to tell their stories to news outlets. -AFP</s>Google has started posting links to articles which fact check stories on its Google News pages.

The new feature means that, where one is available, an article providing a fact check of a story will be included amongst other links.

Google head of news Richard Gingras said in a blog post: “Google News determines whether an article might contain fact checks in part by looking for the schema.org ClaimReview markup. We also look for sites that follow the commonly accepted criteria for fact checks. Publishers who create fact-checks and would like to see it appear with the ‘Fact check’ tag should use that markup in fact-check articles. For more information, head on over to our help center.”

In the UK Google has already begun linking to fact check articles produced by the group Full Fact.
Google introduces a so-called "fact checking" feature on its news aggregate service to combat alleged political bias.