How Google News fought misinformation in India in 2024
From major elections to global conflicts and crises, 2024 was a pivotal year for the news industry, according to Google News. These significant events underscored the crucial role of newsrooms in providing accurate and timely information, the company noted, highlighting its efforts to combat misinformation in India’s news ecosystem.
In 2024, the tech giant supported the Shakti initiative, a collaboration to fight misinformation, and provided AI training to newsrooms. It also empowered India’s news ecosystem through initiatives such as the Indian Languages Programme, which boosted user engagement and ad revenue for local publishers, as well as the expanded Google News Showcase.
“We’re proud of the significant impact of our scaled and in-depth work with Indian news publishers, spanning efforts to understand new user behaviors and revenue streams, programmes that have driven modernization and substantial revenue increases, and collaborative initiatives like Shakti, which has established a robust framework for combating misinformation,” said Durga Raghunath, Head of India News Partnerships.
Raghunath noted that 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. She added that the program “enabled newsrooms to publish fact-checks 78 percent 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 percent surge in regional language fact-checks and a 92 percent increase in election-related fact-checks,” Raghunath noted.
Further recognizing the transformative potential of AI in journalism, Google introduced new training programs in 2024 aimed at “empowering news organizations to integrate these technologies responsibly,” with applications in transcription, research, translation, and data analysis.
The company also expanded Google News Showcase in 2024, which now covers eight languages, including Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, English, and Hindi.
Additionally, the Google News Initiative’s (GNI) Indian Languages Programme, launched in June 2023, has supported over 500 publishers from 28 states in nine languages. These publishers have seen a 15 percent increase in active users and a 32 percent increase in page views.
Raghunath stated that the company aims to “create value for both news publishers and Google in 2025.”
