Google invests $300 million in anti-fake news and subscriptions tools

Amid questions about the role of digital platforms in elections, and in light of accusations that millions of Facebook users had their data harvested for political reasons, Google is tackling the spread of misinformation during elections by teaming up with fact-checking organisation First Draft.

The duo will work together to build a ‘Disinfo Lab’ which will identify fake news stories and remove them from Google News rankings. Google’s chief business officer Phillip Schindler announced 'News Initiative' as an “effort to help journalism thrive in the digital age."

In the second part of the scheme, Google will offer a ‘Subscribe with Google’ tool that will let consumers subscribe to multiple news outlets via Google – this feature will work to a split revenue model with Google taking a minority slice of the subscription cost, and publishers getting the majority. It will also set up an open-source tool called Outline that will let newsrooms provide journalists with more secure access to the internet.

The $300 million commitment will be spread over the next three years.

Source : http://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/03/20/google-schmoozes-publishers-with-300m-investment-anti-fake-news-and-subscription