14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook and Google are teaming up with journalists in France to fight against fake news ahead of the country’s elections this year.
Titled CrossCheck, the initiative is a collaborative journalism verification project that seeks to help the public make sense of what information can be trusted on social media and what can be categorized as fake. Given the rampant spread of fake information during the American elections, it’s only natural that some countries want to fend off such attacks.
While the main collaboration is between CrossCheck and Google News Lab, Facebook has agreed to support the effort through dedicated tools and media literacy efforts that will help explain the verification process. This isn’t really a surprise considering that both companies have recently launched campaigns and new tools to fight against fake news across the Internet.
“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,” the announcement reads.
Google's contribution
Google’s part in this project will be through Google News Lab and its involvement with Electionland, a joint initiative to put the focus on voter suppression around the United States elections. Volunteers from CFJ and Science Po Journalism School in Paris will be invited to take part in a training session to teach them “pioneering newsroom technologies” and advanced search techniques. Editors will then summarize and add context to each claim found online.
They clearly state that the French presidential election is their primary focus at the moment, so journalists from organizations across France will work together to find and verify content that’s making the rounds on the Internet, including photographs, videos, memes and news sites.
Seventeen newsrooms have joined the project, including AFP, BuzzFeed News, Le Monde, Les Schos, Libération, and more. Each will contribute with their own resources and regional knowledge to address the issue at hand, in the hopes that the verification process will be sped up considerably.
According to the announcement, CrossCheck will be using a variety of tools and technology platforms such as Google Trends to surface searches about candidates and campaign claims. CrowdTangle will help discover and monitor social content regarding the elections in the early stages, while Spike, a technology belonging to NewsWhip, will be used to spot and predict breakout stories, social posts, and viral events.
CrossCheck is to go live on Monday, February 27, and newsrooms and journalism students who are interested in being a part of the initiative can still join in.