News
Google backs away from search result snippets that address falsehoods
People’s complaints about Google search results — more spam, less usefulness — have been rising for a couple of years now. Previous complaints centered on product reviews, shopping and clickbait-y misinformation.
In recent weeks, though, Google took steps to downgrade fact-checking content, leaving fact-checkers scratching their heads. Why remove something so helpful?
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
State of Play
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.