Google stands accused of spreading fake news through the Google stands accused of spreading fake news through the “featured snippets” feature of its search engine. The problem is made worse by the company’s Google Home speaker which par…
Google stands accused of spreading fake news through the “featured snippets” feature of its search engine. The problem is made worse by the company’s Google Home speaker which parrots these snippets and presents them as fact.
Perform a search on Google, and in many cases you will find that there is a box at the top of the screen that directly answers the question you asked. This is a featured snippet. The problem is that these undergo little — if any — vetting, and Google merely presents the top result… even if that happens to be a nonsensical article from Breitbart.
Over the weekend, a couple of searches that gave strange or wildly inaccurate results became popular. A search for “is Obama planning a coup” suggested that Barack Obama is a communist and in cahoots with China.
