Google stated on Thursday that it is essential for the firm to support polls as part of its duty to its customers and the democratic process, particularly with the elections on February 8 quickly approaching.
Google said it is committed to working with the government, business community, and civil society to provide voters with reliable and useful information while protecting its platforms from misuse as Pakistanis head to the polls to choose representatives for the National Assembly and provincial assemblies.
Providing voters with useful information
According to the company, it is aware that consumers require pertinent and helpful information to help them navigate the political process in the lead-up to elections.
We present data from reputable, impartial organizations on a wide range of topics, making trustworthy information easily accessible with practical product features.
Google Search: The company’s ranking algorithms are intended to highlight reliable sources and give users context for a range of election-related information. Additionally, links to reliable resources on “how to vote” and “how to register to vote” will be available on the Google homepage.
YouTube: To connect users to high-quality election news and information, Google’s recommendation system prominently surfaces content and relevant context from credible sources, including local and national news sources, on the homepage, in search results, and in the “Up Next” panel.
Google Trends: The business developed a Google Trends website, a tool that helps expose the top queries, themes, and voter interests, to assist the media and public in learning more about what voters are interested in this election.
The portal also provides information on the most popular election-related search terms across the nation, including information on wages, taxes, and the economy. Although it doesn’t represent voting intentions, this offers insightful information about what individuals are looking for.
Google News Initiative: Google conducted a number of seminars to provide journalists with the necessary tools to cover elections in the media. These workshops covered topics such as using Google Trends, digital security, and tools for news verification.
What is the emphasis?
“In the run-up to the election, we have focused our efforts on supporting Pakistanis who are expected to cast their vote by helping them connect to useful and relevant election-related information online,” stated Farhan Qureshi, Google’s Country Director for Pakistan.
In addition, we have trained newsrooms and journalists to publish reliable and authoritative news ahead of election cycles and invested in the news ecosystem. To make it simpler for the journalists to locate this information for their articles, we recently developed a Google Trends Pakistan General Election page,” she continued.
preventing misuse of platforms
According to the company, safeguarding election integrity also entails preventing misuse of its goods and services.
The business stated that it has long-standing guidelines to keep both Google and YouTube secure and that these guidelines apply to everyone and all kinds of content, including political information.
“Policy against hate speech, harassment, incitement to violence, technically manipulated content, and some forms of election misinformation is outlined in our YouTube Community Guidelines.”
According to the company, “between July and September 2023, we removed over 8.1 million videos and over 10 million channels globally for violating our Community Guidelines on YouTube. We rely on a combination of machine learning and human reviewers to identify and remove content that violates our policies.”
Qureshi went on, “We’ve been working to make sure the proper systems and policies are in place to support the country’s elections. Election integrity is a top priority for YouTube.” In addition to providing links to reliable and high-quality content, we quickly identify and eliminate offensive content using machine learning and in-house reviewers. Our objective is to strike the correct balance between keeping our community safe and fostering a diversity of opinions.
