Google targets 'fake news,' offensive search suggestions

SAN FRANCISCO -- 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 discussed most of them publicly until now. The announcement in a blog post Tuesday reflects Google's confidence in a new screening system designed to reduce the chances 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.

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

Facebook, where fake news stories and other hoaxes have circulated widely on its social network, also has been trying to stem the tide of misleading information by working with The Associated Press and other news organizations to review suspect stories and set the record straight when warranted.

Facebook also has provided its nearly 2 billion users ways to identify posts believed to contain false information, something Google is allowing users of its search engine to do for some of the news snippets featured in its results.

Google began attacking fake news in late December after several embarrassing examples of misleading information appeared near the top of its search engine.

Among other things, Google's search engine pointed to a website that incorrectly reported President-elect Donald Trump had won the popular vote in the U.S. election, President Barack Obama was planning a coup, and the Holocaust never occurred during World War II.

Only about 0.25 percent of Google's search results were being polluted with falsehoods, Gomes said. But that still was enough to threaten the integrity of a search engine that processes billions of search requests per day largely because it is regarded widely as the internet's most authoritative source of information.

To address the problem, Google began revising the closely guarded algorithms that generate its search with the help of 10,000 people who rate the quality and reliability of the recommendations during tests. Google also rewrote its 140-page book of rating guidelines that help the quality-control evaluators make their assessments.