I don't think anyone is concerned about Google trying to get past fake news (or rather, surely there are few voices there)
The issues are more disconcerting, like senior executives trying to make sure that 'Trump never happens again', the assumption being either 'voters were so deeply misinformed' or that 'Trump is illegitimate because of who he is'.
If the former, well, ok, possibly, but I feel that G will end up leaning on the bias to try to tell us 'how bad Trump' is. If it's the later, well, this would be deeply anti-democratic.
The new policy sheds light on how they'll go about this - in the article they reference to how, when people type 'Clinton emails' that there should be no reference to the ostensible scandal. This is possibly problematic as Hillary Clinton was asked to produce emails by the Feds and decided to delete most of them: this is a legit scandal. Arguably, G is suppressing this information because they don't deem it factual? Or newsworthy?
More extensively, they gave examples of how they are going to move from 'truth' to 'fair' in an intersectional manner by offering ups suggestions that 'balance historical injustice'.
Open google.com right how, if you type 'women can' you get suggestions such as 'vote, fly, do anything'. If you type 'men can' you'll get as a first suggestion 'have babies'.
While the former is uncontroversial (i.e of course women can vote and fly), is this really Google's place to start to suggest such things unless they are material to historical searches? And the male suggestion, doesn't really line up with the female example. 'Men can have babies'? Well, this a very narrow and specifically intersectional ideal, while maybe it's technically true, I don't see how bringing up that issue in the context of someone searching is relevant to anything at all (again, unless it fits some kind of algorithmic purpose i.e. it's a popular search).
The notion that Google, the manger of the world's information, is going to 'right historical wrongs' is in some ways very good, I mean, who doesn't want to make 'wrong things right'? But of course it's utterly Orwellian in practice, with a small group of ideologues deciding what we should see and not, based on their unique worldview.
The implications of this new 'right the wrongs of history' worldview on search results is beyond scary.
So yes: getting rid of fake news, trying to point out narrative, calling out lies - sure.
Problematic: trying to feed people content that Google deems 'more appropriate'.
Scary: modifying search results and suggestions to be consistent with their worldview and to 'right the wrongs of history'.
I don't trust the talent and overall goodwill of Google anymore, I think they need to be regulated and there needs to be more transparency.
I also think it would be ideal to end the monopoly and try on actual diversity, i.e. real competition.