Microsoft includes NewsGuard fake news warnings in Edge browser

How do you spot a fake?

When users of Microsoft’s Edge mobile browser visit a news website with a dubious reputation, they’ll now get a warning to proceed with caution. 

As spotted by The Guardian, Microsoft has partnered with the news watchdog organization NewsGuard to provide Edge users with more information about the news veracity of the site they’re visiting.

Microsoft and NewsGuard announced the mobile browser initiative on January 16. Their partnership is part of Microsoft’s larger Defending Democracy Program, which it announced in August; the browser integration helps promotes one of the program’s core tenets of fighting disinformation. 

“Safe browsing includes providing our customers access to solutions that can help avoid misleading content, and so we are delighted to be able to provide NewsGuard’s tools within the Microsoft Edge mobile apps,” Marc Wautier, a group program manager at Microsoft, stated in NewsGuard’s release about the program.

Though the NewsGuard integration is still rolling out to some devices, Edge users should receive a pop-up explaining the new service. They can choose to opt-in on the mobile browser itself. 

“What we’re doing is not only sorting out political propaganda fake news sites, but also a general media literacy effort of helping people to understand what they’re reading,” Steven Brill, co-CEO of NewsGuard, told Mashable over the phone.

Thanks to the partnership, browser users will see a “report card” that summarizes the reputation of the site they are visiting, against standards meant to assess whether it contains reliable and objective reporting. For example, when users visit the Daily Mail’s online site, Mail Online, a box pops up at the top of the screen that says “Proceed with caution: this website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability,” and links to more details. 

NewsGuard has previously made a browser extension with this same capability, available on Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and other browsers. But now, on Microsoft’s Mobile Edge Browser, the report card comes in the browser itself.

“It could be an asset for a browser,” Brill said. “That’s the way Microsoft sees it.”

Other technology companies, including Facebook, have instituted similar pop ups with more information about the news website. But this has generally not been done at the browser level.

Microsoft Edge is less popular than Chrome, Safari, and Mozilla, according to reports from both Statista and StatCounter. But rival Apple has been taking a stand about its company ethics, touting its supposed commitment to privacy and transparency. Microsoft’s initiative also tries to put its work on the right side of history.

However, the concept of “fake news” may be proving less of an urgent problem, according to some recent studies. Researchers say that only a small percentage of Americans engaged with fake news in the run up to the 2016 election. 

Still, a 2016 BuzzFeed report found that fake news tends to be more viral than accurate news. And Facebook reports that millions of people were exposed to misleading Russian accounts. So even if actual fake news may have been limited, attempts at political manipulation were widespread, and effective.

The warnings may help bring some healthy skepticism to sites where it’s warranted. On the other hand, they can also imbue readers with confidence that what they’re reading is the truth from organizations that maintain high journalistic standards. 

The latter may in fact prove to be the most important service it can provide, especially since Americans’ trust in the news media has reached record lows.