Google Targets ‘Fake News,' Offensive Search Suggestions

Google has sprinkled some new ingredients into its search engine in an effort to prevent bogus information and offensive suggestions from souring its results.

The changes have been in the works for four months, but Google hadn’t publicly discussed most of them until now. The announcement in a blog post reflects Google’s confidence in a new screening system designed to reduce the chances that its influential search engine will highlight untrue stories about people and events, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “fake news.”

“It’s not a problem that is going to go all the way to zero, but we now think we can stay a step ahead of things,” said Ben Gomes, Google’s vice president of engineering for search.

CORRECTING AUTOCOMPLETE

Besides taking steps to block fake news from appearing in its search results, Google also has reprogrammed a popular feature that automatically tries to predict what a person is looking for as a search request as being typed. The tool, called “autocomplete,” has been overhauled to omit derogatory suggestions, such as “are women evil,” or recommendations that promote violence.

Google also adding a feedback option that will enable users to complain about objectionable autocomplete suggestions so a human can review the wording.