In 2024, Google News emerged as a key player in the fight against misinformation in India, a year marked by significant global events, including major elections and crises. The tech giant’s contributions to the Indian news ecosystem were highlighted, emphasizing the importance of newsrooms in providing accurate and timely information. Google News supported the Shakti initiative, a collaborative effort to combat misinformation, and provided AI training to newsrooms. The Shakti initiative brought together over 50 news publishers and 300 journalists to debunk misinformation and deepfakes in 10 local languages, reaching a vast audience.
The programme enabled newsrooms to publish fact-checks 78 per cent faster and facilitated the creation of over 67 new fact-checking desks. In just three months, over 6,600 fact-checks were amplified, leading to a 180 per cent surge in regional language fact-checks and a 92 per cent increase in election-related fact-checks.
Google News also empowered India’s news ecosystem through initiatives like the Indian Languages Programme, which boosted user engagement and ad revenue for local publishers. The programme supported over 500 publishers from 28 states in nine languages, leading to a 15 per cent increase in active users and a 32 per cent increase in page views since June 2023.
However, the fight against misinformation is not limited to India. Globally, tech companies have been grappling with the spread of election misinformation. In the US, major internet platforms like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube took decisive action following the Capitol riots in 2021, suspending thousands of accounts spreading election lies.
However, since then, the industry has undergone a dramatic transformation, pivoting away from many of the commitments, policies, and tools it once embraced to safeguard democratic power. In a similar vein, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in a dispute with Republican-led states over the federal government’s role in combating controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.
The threat of election disinformation has been supercharged by the advent of artificial intelligence. AI has made it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake but convincing content aimed at fooling voters. This marks a significant leap from a few years ago when creating phony photos, videos, or audio clips required teams of people with time, technical skill, and money.
In response to this, Google restricted its Gemini AI chatbot from answering election-related questions in countries where voting was taking place in 2024. This was done out of an abundance of caution to prevent the spread of misinformation about candidates, political parties, and other elements of politics.
Despite these challenges, tech companies have shown a commitment to combating AI-generated election trickery. Major technology companies signed a pact to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent artificial intelligence tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world.
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