Google's long-time mission has been to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," according to Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai — and combating the rising tide of misinformation is "at the heart of everything we do."
Silicon Valley is at the center of a political firestorm over information shared on its platforms — and how that contributes to a fractured, polarized climate. In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance, Pichai said the world's largest search engine focuses primarily on ranking results that are "factual, accurate and safe."
That effort "is part of what we do, and everything we do in ranking information is designed for that," Pichai said, adding that the company is doing the same with YouTube, the online video platform owned by Google.
"Content responsibility has been a big part of our focus. And we are making tremendous strides, both by using human reviewers and A.I.," Pichai said — calling it "constant ongoing work. The amount of information in the world is more than ever before, and so we are constantly working to scale that up."
During the company's first-quarter earnings analyst call, Pichai highlighted some of the results from its investments in machine learning, which flags content that violates the company's policies. A new metric called the Violative View Rate (VVR) plunged during Q4 from the comparable quarter in 2017, Pichai noted on the call.
There will be always debates about what is OK to say, what is not OK to say, and I don't see all that going away.Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
Still, the volume of disputed information continues to explode, putting big tech companies on the hotseat. In late March, Pichai testified remotely alongside Facebook (F.B.) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter (TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey during a hearing held by the subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on "Social Media's Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation."
In his written testimony, Pichai noted that more than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and approximately 15% of search queries on Google each day are new. That underscores what Pichai told Yahoo Finance is the "inherent nature of information," and the boundaries of acceptable discourse.
The CEO suggested "there will be always debates about what is O.K. to say, what is not O.K. to say, and I don't see all that going away."
For its part, Google aims to "develop better frameworks, better processes, better systems, better principles, and do this better than ever before," Pichai said.
"And our data shows that we are able to do that. But I think it will always be ongoing work given in any large system," he added.
When addressing misinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic, Pichai said that search relied primarily on data from recognized organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a source of authoritative information. The search engine also ranks journalistic organizations higher.
For example, on YouTube, content from places like the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, or CDC were surfaced higher.
"So you elevate authoritative information. So that's one example for something like that," Pichai said, but noted that Google will "always have to account for personal experiences."
He added: "We do, as a company, believe in freedom of speech, and so we default towards maximizing freedom of expression. And so that's something we cherish as well."
Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.