Google is rolling out more election-related protections for YouTube, search and AI

As the US heads toward the most important election in its 248-year history, Google is rolling out safeguards to ensure users get reliable information. In addition to the measures it announced late last year, the company said Friday it is adding election-related monitoring lines to YouTube, Search, Google Play and AI products.

YouTube will add informational panels above the search results for national election candidates at least. The modules, almost like the ones you see when you search the web for celebrities, will include basic information about the candidates like their political party and a link to Google Search for more information. The company says the panels may also include a link to the person’s official website (or other channel). As Election Day (November 5) approaches, YouTube’s homepage will feature reminders of where and how to vote.

Google Search will include integrated voter registration services from state election offices for all users. Google gets that data in partnership with Democracy Works, a nonprofit organization that works with various companies and organizations to “help voters whenever and wherever they need it.”

At that time, the Google Play Store will add a new badge indicating that the app is from an official government agency. The company outlines its requirements for applications that “communicate with government information” in a developer support document. Authorized applications that have submitted the necessary forms are eligible for “legal approval marked with clear management visible on the Google Play Store.”

As for the productive AI, which can be prone to hallucinations that would put Jerry Garcia to shame, Google is expanding its election-related restrictions, which were announced late last year. They will include disclosure of advertisements created or generated using AI, content labels for generated content and SynthID digital watermarking embedded for text, audio, images and video generated by AI. Originally defined as Gemini (apps and web), election monitoring principles will apply to AI Search Review, YouTube AI-generated live chat summaries, gems (custom chatbots with user-generated commands) and Gemini image generation.