The first round of the French presidential election is due to be held in April. So it’s no coincidence that Google and Facebook are stepping up efforts locally to combat the circulation of so-called fake news as the democratic drum beat cranks up — partnering on a collaborative initiative aimed at combating the spread of disinformation online.
Google, via its News Lab arm , is backing a collaborative verification platform called CrossCheck , that will launch in France on February 27 and continue through the French elections — bringing together a raft of local media companies to power a website where members of the public can report content they believe to be dubious, or ask questions for CrossCheck’s media partners to respond to. The tech companies will be providing data and tools to help spot potential viral fakes pertaining to the election.
The Cross Check project is led by First Draft News , a not-for-profit which counts Google’s News Lab as a founding partner, and describes its mission as the development of tools and training to “improve practices in the ethical sourcing, verification and reporting of stories that emerge online”.
“The public will be encouraged to participate by submitting questions and links to disputed sites and social content for CrossCheck to investigate. These questions will all be listed and answered on a dedicated CrossCheck website,” says an explainer on the website.
“CrossCheck brings together expertise from media and technology industries to ensure hoaxes, rumors and false claims are swiftly debunked, and misleading or confusing stories are accurately reported. With the French presidential election as its primary focus, journalists from organizations across France will work together to find and verify content circulating publicly online, whether it is photographs, videos, memes, comment threads or news sites,” it adds.
There are currently seventeen media partners for Cross Check — including: AFP (Agence France-Presse), BuzzFeed News, France Médias Monde (via les Observateurs de France 24), France Télévisions, Global Voices, Libération, La Provence, Les Echos, La Voix du Nord, Le Monde, Nice-Matin, Ouest-France, Rue89 Bordeaux, Rue89Lyon, Rue89 Strasbourg, Storyful and StreetPress — who also helped design the vetting process. (Additional newsrooms and students wanting to join the project are asked to email crosscheck@firstdraftnews.
