MANILA, Philippines – Tech giants Google and Facebook will help French newsrooms fight fake news as the country heads into its presidential elections.

The initiative, known as CrossCheck, is a “collaborative journalism verification project” with the objective of helping people understand who to trust when it comes to social media, web searches, and news they consume online.

“With combined expertise from across media and technology, CrossCheck aims to ensure hoaxes, rumors, and false claims are swiftly debunked, and misleading or confusing stories are accurately reported,” explained David Dieudonné, head of Google News Lab in Paris.

“With the French presidential election approaching, journalists from across France and beyond will work together to find and verify content circulating publicly online, whether it is photographs, videos, memes, comment threads and news sites,” he added.

Google News Lab will work with organization First Draft News as well as Facebook, which is providing support in the form of tools and media literacy efforts.  At least 17 local and national newsrooms in France have joined the move.

They are:

• Agence France-Presse
• BuzzFeed News
• France Médias Monde (via les Observateurs de France 24)
• France Télévisions
• Global Voices 
• Libération
• La Provence
• Les Echos
• La Voix du Nord
• Le Monde
• Nice-Matin
• Ouest-France
• Rue89 Bordeaux
• Rue89Lyon
• Rue89 Strasbourg 
• Storyful 
• StreetPress

Aside from ensuring accurate reporting during the election period, one of the other tasks to be handled is a study of fake news. 

To help with this, First Draft announced, “First Draft Founding Partner Bellingcat will map patterns and behaviors within the misinformation ecosystem as part of a wider research relating to the European elections.” 

Further reports and graphics produced by Bellingcat will be posted on CrossCheck’s website throughout this project.

CrossCheck will go live on Monday, February 27. – Rappler.com

Editor’s Note: Rappler is one of the Philippine newsgroups which joined the First Draft Partners Network.