Google News on Thursday launched a fact-check feature, just in time to separate fact from fiction as the dizzying 2016 election cycle comes to a close.
Of the 560 statements made by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and fact-checked by the Tampa Bay Times-owned PolitiFact, only about half held some measure of truth.
Richard Gingras, head of Google News, announced Thursday in a blog post that fact checks will be differentiated from other articles in the expanded story box on news.google.com and in the Google News & Weather iOS and Android apps.
The new feature is aimed at helping people find fact checks "in large news stories," he said.
Google will use website code and a site's reputation for fact checks to determine whether a story qualifies for the new tag.
"We're excited to see the growth of the fact-check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin," Gingras said.
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