Google has introduced a fact checking category to its news service, just ahead of the U.S. presidential elections.

Articles in Google News are labeled and categorized to reflect the type of story they are. For example, there is an “in-depth” and “opinion” label.

Now the search giant is adding “fact check” to the list “to help readers find fact checking in large news stories”.

An article will be flagged up in the new category if it has a certain website code and if it follows the “commonly accepted criteria for fact checks”, Google said in a blog post.

While Google makes no reference to the U.S. election in its blog post, the release of the fact check tag is very close to November presidential elections with journalists busy analyzing comments from all candidates.

“We’re excited to see the growth of the Fact Check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin,” Google said.

 By Ariun Kharpal

Source by http://www.cnbc.com