Google's Plan to Curb Misinformation Ahead of US Midterm Elections

In the coming weeks, Google plans to launch tools that highlight local and regional journalism covering political campaigns and races. This comes as an initiative to provide more accurate and trustworthy information ahead of the November elections. These tools will be launched on Google’s search platform and YouTube. Political advertisers—who are not cash-strapped in times of recession—spend most of their ad dollars on YouTube and CTV. To that end, both Google and YouTube have already removed content that violated their current policies. According to Leslie Miller, vp of government affairs and public policy at YouTube, this includes videos with widespread fraud, errors and glitches. Changes expected in Google’s search Searches such as “how to vote” will highlight information in English and Spanish that is sourced from state election officials. This information will include important dates and deadlines based on the person’s location along with instructions on acceptable ways to cast a ballot. For searches related to voting, an information panel will direct people to Google’s How to Vote and How to Register to Vote features with information about voter registration and election resources. This will be replicated across YouTube. To that, when a person searches for a federal candidate on Google, they will see a panel that highlights information about the candidate such as their party affiliation and the current position they hold. Changes expected on YouTube Google-owned YouTube will highlight mainstream news sources with labels below the videos that provide election information. This information will be relayed in English and Spanish. YouTube also plans to use technology to prevent the spread of harmful election misinformation that is recommended algorithmically to viewers. Any search relevant to the midterm elections on the platform will highlight content sourced from authoritative national and local news sources like PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal, Univision and local ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates, according to Miller. Real-time election information On Election Day, Google will display results on top of its search results and below YouTube videos. The information panel (right-hand side of the search page) will link to Google’s election results feature, where people will be able to track results in real time. Similarly, the YouTube homepage will highlight live election coverage from authoritative news sources and provide a link to midterm results. Facebook Loses Its Luster for Some Political Advertisers