Google and MWC will create open software against fake news

Barcelona, ​​(EFE).- Mobile World Capital Barcelona has announced this Tuesday its commitment to develop its own digital tool, supported by Google.org, to combat false news in the digital age through a tool open to the community ‘fact -checker’.

The tool will be called Fact-Checking Suite and aims to help the community more quickly verify the information published on digital channels, as explained by the CEO of Mobile World Capital, Francesc Fajula, at the presentation of the agreement held in the Mobile World Congress.

“This tool will increase the reach and impact of fact-checkers, improving their ability to detect trends and disinformation campaigns,” Fajula said.

The software that Mobile World Capital will create is aimed at Spanish organizations in the news fact-checking ecosystem, including the media and civil society.

The tool will also be able to operate in the different co-official languages ​​of Spain, such as Catalan, Basque or Galician.

Fajula and Miguel Escassi, Director of Public Policy and Institutional Relations at Google Spain, have formalized today the funds that Google.org will contribute to the initiative.

“Europe and the world have to know that in their fight against disinformation, they will find an ally in Google to make the information on the web, as well as orderly, true”, Escassi stated.

The presentation also featured Manuel Szapiro, representative of the European Commission in Barcelona, ​​who warned of the danger posed by disinformation, illustrating it with the false news (‘fake news’) that is distributed about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“What is at stake here is democracy,” Szapiro asserted.

Fighting misinformation with technology

After the presentation of the agreement between Mobile World Capital and Google, a debate was held on the tools that technology offers to fight against disinformation.

The professor of Journalism at the University of Navarra, Ramón Salaverría, has stated that technology has its limits: “It is a zero-sum game. Every time technology achieves a new tool against disinformation, technology also offers new possibilities to those who want to create false news.

In this sense, Salaverría has added that, given this limitation, another variable must be added to the struggle: “People. The only way to fight against disinformation is for us to educate people in the consumption of information and in the detection of false news”.