Google Meeting with AFCN Community
The Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) led by ARIJ, held a meeting which gathered representatives from Google with AFCN community members on Thursday 27th of July 2023. This comes as a part of “Dalil” project which is supported by the European Union, in partnership with “Siren” in Lebanon and “JOSA” in Jordan.
This meeting has brought together representatives of 16 initiatives/organisations of AFCN community from 9 Arab countries, with the News and Information Credibility Lead at Google, Mevan Babakar, and EMEA Partnerships Manager at Google News Lab Vincent Ryan.
During the meeting, Babakar ensured Google’s interest in developing and supporting Fact-checking and Journalism for their significant effect on societies, and stressed Google’s openness to cooperate with fact-checking organisations/initiatives. She also highlighted the crucial role of the Arab Fact-checkers Network in unifying the efforts of Arab fact-checkers under one umbrella.
This was followed by an overview of Google News initiative tools that will improve fact-checkers reach to information, such as the “Fact-checking Explorer” tool, which works as a browser for fact-checks carried out by fact-checking organisations accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), and also talked about the new features that have been added recently, such as the feature that gives the primary source and the original date of the images you are searching for through “Google Lens” using Google reverse image search engine.
And before concluding the meeting, all attendees had the opportunity to ask their questions and discuss their thoughts with Google representatives, as some referred to ideas for cooperation with Google, and others expressed their need to obtain support and training.
It is worth mentioning that AFCN seeks, through organising such meetings, to keep the discussion open between Arab fact-checking organisations and major tech companies, in the aim of unifying efforts in combating the spread of mis/disinformation.
