In the fight against fake news, Google is at the coalface. The recent influx of AI-generated, heavily Photoshopped, or deep-faked imagery has prompted the search giant into action. Earlier this year, Google Beta-tested several tools designed to check the authenticity of online imagery and help show users the source of the images they find on the search giant’s platforms.
Google has a form with image search. The introduction of Google Lens at the tail-end of 2017 was arguably the last significant image search development, enabling puntersto use Google Lens to search any image on the webfor objects, products, and people.
Now more determined than ever to sort the visual wheat from the ocular chaff, Google has added additional features to image searches that promise to give users new weapons in the fight against fakery.
Using ‘About this image’ to fact-check Google Images
First up, Google has launched ‘About this image’, a tool designed to show you the data Google holds about an image’s origins, subsequent uses and information about the source. It doesn’t always tell you immediately if an image is fake, but where it’s available, you’re able to access the image’s metadata, telling you whether or not AI-generated it.
The key features of About this image are:
How to use Google’s About this image
Accessing this valuable data is child’s play when you know how. Here are the steps to access About this image.
Digging deeper into Google’s About this image
If you want to drill down into your results, at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the source for the image and, just below that, a clickable ‘About this page’ window.
That will show you more information about the site that originally posted the pic – things like when Google first indexed it, links to the site from reputable sources (if they exist) and a synopsis of the site’s purpose, either from Wikipedia or other well-regarded source or from the site itself.
When Google’s About this image goes wrong
Occasionally, ‘About this image’ gets things muddled. We clicked on an image of the Samsung T9 SSD, and it claimed, ‘a version of this image is at least 10 years old’. Presumably, it confused one black rectangle with another, which is understandable but also a warning to be cautious with less detailed or more generic imagery.
Using Fact Check Explorer to find out more about your search results
Google released a global beta version of Fact Check Explorer’s image search functionality in mid-2023, adding searching via image URL to the existing text search.
Now, it gets API support to be integrated into in-house image solutions. According to Google, over 70 per cent of its beta users reported the tool reduced their image investigation time. In the short term, the FactCheck Claim Search API will make it possible for approved journalists and fact-checkers to search the image corpus on Fact Check Explorer via the API and integrate the solution into their own image tools.
In the future, this functionality could power all image-based searches, in addition to the functionality offered by About this image.
How Google Fact Check Explorer works:
Fact Check Explorer has an ever-evolving database of fact-checked searches. Here’s how you can research existing Fact Checks:
- Navigate to theFact Check Explorer toolin your browser
2.Type ‘list:recent’into the Fact Check Explorer bar orclick ‘Recent fact checks’to see a list of checks in chronological order
- you may also search as you would in Google tofind fact-check information about a specific subject.
- You’ll see a brief explanation of the claim, related tags, and a fact-check rating totell you whether the story is true, false, entirely fake, or somewhere in between.
AI-powered Search Generative Experience now available in the US
US-based Googlers can now enjoy an AI-powered search experience by signing up for Google’s Search Labs’ experiments’.
Here’s how:
What happens next largely depends on the intent of your search query. If it’s transactional - perhaps something along the lines of’buy the best commuting bicycle'- you’ll likely see an AI-generated overview of the subject with tips and advice. Beneath that, you get some fairly standard Google Shopping-style listings for bikes you might want to consider.
Informational searches are similar, but they omit the shopping listings. They will likely include more detailed background information, bullet points, and links to further reading.
At this stage, it’s nothing you won’t have seen before via Google Bard queries and the Google Shopping tab, but it is a better/more rounded search experience that will no doubt become standard in the near future.
Google Fact Checks - is it too little, too late?
Ultimately, Google should be applauded for trying to clean up its vast corner of the internet. Is it too little too late? We’d argue that anything that can help stem the tide of disinformation, particularly when it’s as compelling as AI-generated images, can only be a good thing. This is a solid start in the fight against misinformation - let’s hope future iterations go even further and Google can continue to bring some order to the current web chaos.
