Italy's Red Button

Great news for Signal readers in Italy. If you’re online and see a news story that looks fake, you can now use the “red button” system created by the government to have that story checked out.

Just log on to the website of the Postal Police, the folks responsible for battling online crime, and let them know you’ve got a story for them to check out. They will then use special software to figure out the source of that story and report back on whether it’s fake. If this system works, it will come in especially handy during Italy’s upcoming election season.

At a moment when confidence in the reliability of information has already made news before and after elections in the US, South America, Europe, and Africa, is there anything similar in the works in other countries holding elections this year — places like Brazil, Mexico, Hungary, and the US?