With growing concern over “fake news” on the web, Microsoft is adding a new NewsGuard feature to its Edge browser. The company says this will help users identify potentially fake content.
According to a report from TechCrunch, Microsoft’s Edge browser on iOS will now have a built-in feature called NewsGuard. The feature isn’t enabled by default, but Microsoft will nudge you to enable it within the Settings menu.
In the app, the option is called News Rating and can be toggled at any given time by the user:
While NewsGuard isn’t on by default, anyone using Edge can enable it with a simple toggle in the settings menu. When I downloaded the app to test it, Edge actually nudged me to the Settings menu and then to an option called News Rating (this enables NewsGuard) with a small blue dot. The dot wasn’t an alarm-red notification but would probably be notable enough to pique my interest and point me to the setting, even if I wasn’t writing this story.
At the time of writing, NewsGuard is only looking at U.S. based content and websites, however a handful of international publications are being scanned as well.
However, with such a tool comes with great responsibility. While the feature may work well for most people, the tool is ultimately curated by humans and that means there’s a level of subjectivity at play.
Microsoft Edge is available as a free download on the iOS App Store.
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