[elihu]

Google doesn't have any good options here. They can either ignore the problem of fake news, or they can become the arbiters of what is or is not fake news. If the latter, the boundary between filtering out misinformation and actively manipulating public opinion is rather fuzzy.

As a news consuming public, our best option seems to be to not use Google as our primary news filter. Long term, we probably need an entirely different kind of news aggregator that isn't under the control of any single entity as you're suggesting, but I'm not sure what that would look like and how it would work.

[mjevans]

Imagine if various organizations you cared about had a feed (RSS or something) of links to stories and/or important search terms.

Your reader polls those feeds and uses some weighted algorithm to produce a set of custom news, possibly by consulting a public index like Google (or even a news outlet directly, redirect in to it with the search terms of choice).

It's still an echo chamber, but if you've got fake news pushing fiends on the list of sources you trust you've already got problems.