ISabelle Sonnenfeld, head of Google News Lab EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), was speaking to Lusa on the eve of the International Fact Checking Day, which is celebrated on April 2nd.
“We’re constantly looking to partner with leading fact-checking organizations around the world and incorporate best practices into our products” and “we take our commitment to fighting misinformation around the world very seriously,” he says. responsible, when asked about Google’s role in this area.
“Our Google News Initiative team supports journalists and fact-checking organizations working to combat misinformation globally” and since 2018 has invested “almost $75 million” (69.2 million euros) “in projects and partnerships to strengthen media literacy and combat misinformation around the world”, lists Isabelle Sonnenfeld.
As part of this commitment, “we offer partnerships and training in 70 countries to bring Google technology to journalists and newsroom leaders”, continues the official, referring that “more than 555,000 journalists and journalism students have already been trained” and ‘workshops ‘ on “digital verification of more than 250,000 journalists”, continues the head of the Google News Lab for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
As far as Europe is concerned, “we provide digital verification training to more than 90,000 European journalists and our free online courses to help journalists find, verify and tell stories have been viewed more than 400,000 times”, he says.
“Our work continues in partnership with many experts around the world to fight misinformation and ensure that everyone gets the answers and information they need quickly and accurately,” he stresses.
Asked whether media literacy and data verification are enough to combat disinformation or there should be regulation for social networks, Isabelle Sonnenfeld says that “the fight against disinformation and advances in media literacy go hand in hand”.
It highlights that Google supports “digital literacy efforts through Google.org”, having already trained “more than seven million young Europeans in digital skills and digital literacy”.
In Portugal, Google trained 2,500 journalists and communication students and invested eight million euros to support 32 Portuguese media projects.
“We plan to continue to support media innovation in Europe”, he assures.
In addition to media literacy and journalist training programmes, “we also have a history of investing in product features that help people develop skills” in online media and information literacy.
“Ahead of International Fact-Checking Day, we’re rolling out new experiences on Google search to help people across Europe make sense of information online at these important times,” he stresses.
One tool “I find particularly useful is the ‘About This Result’ feature in Google search which provides important context about a result before visiting the ‘web’ page, including a description of the ‘website’ when it was first indexed and what other people say about the ‘website’ and the theme”, he exemplifies.
“We also highlight relevant, fact-checked articles from independent organizations in Google Search, News and Images results to ensure users get the full context when they search.”
“In my role at Google, I have the opportunity to work directly with journalists and disinformation experts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to come up with new ideas and find solutions together” and “we take our role in helping to fight disinformation and we continually invest in products, programs and partnerships to help people access high quality information. This work continues, evolves and adapts to this multidimensional challenge”, stressed the official.
Google has been working “with fact checkers and specialized organizations to find solutions to combat misinformation”, he stresses, noting that it brings “to the surface” independent fact checks six million times daily.
“An organization alone cannot solve the spread of disinformation and therefore collaboration is essential to develop innovative solutions both to combat disinformation and to promote media literacy”, he defends.
In 2022, Google and Youtube announced funding of 13.2 million dollars (12.1 million euros) to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the non-profit institution Poynter “to launch a new Fund Global Fact-Checking Organization to support its network of 135 fact-checking organizations in 65 countries”, covering more than 80 languages.
“Building on our previous work to address disinformation, this is Google and YouTube’s largest grant for fact-checking to help fact-checkers scale existing operations or launch new ones that elevate information, reinforce reliable sources and reduce the harm caused by disinformation around the world”, he stresses.
In Europe, Google provided a total of 25 million euros for the first European Fund for Media and Information.
“Our five-year commitment will support the European University Institute, the European Digital Media Observatory and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in funding organizations that seek to tackle some of the most important challenges such as, for example, helping adults and young people to improve their skills of media literacy or in supporting the dimensioning of the critical work of fact-checkers”, he says, and, “so far, 40 projects have been funded across Europe”.
Also last year, “we began a partnership with the Lviv Media Forum, and earlier this year with the Thomson Foundation to deliver a four-part training program to Ukrainian news organizations on how to engage diaspora audiences and combat misinformation , among other topics”. These conclusions were published in a handbook and “distributed free of charge by the Ukrainian news industry network”.
In Germany, “we’ve expanded our long-standing fact-checking partnership Faktencheck23 with the German news agency.”
Since 2021, “more than 1,300 journalists from over 100 German newsrooms have taken part in the training and joined a vibrant fact-checking community”, he concludes.
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