#factchecks — Public Fediverse posts

NiemanLab: Google’s new AI tool helps fact-checkers investigate AI fakes. “Every day the fact-checking team for one of India’s largest news organizations works to debunk a slew of false and misleading images circulating across social media. For the six-person team at India Today, that might include addressing an AI-generated archival photograph of a politician, a clip of deadly flooding […]

Reuters: Meta and TikTok agree to fact-check content on Spain border crossings after deadly rush. “Social networks Meta and TikTok have agreed to fact-check content ​on border crossings into Spain following the massive rush ‌to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, European Union tech chief Henna Virkkunen said.”

Poynter: South Korea wrote a fact-checking code into law. Korean fact-checkers are wary.. “In South Korea, anyone who believes an online post is false can now report it. The company that hosts the post must then decide whether the complaint is valid. That is how an amendment to the Network Act, which took effect July 7, is designed to work. It applies to nine platforms with at least a million […]

Poynter: Poynter’s PolitiFact launches service providing reliable, engaging health information to consumers and news organizations. “The service, called Well Informed, offers reliable, topical health information on social media, where more people are getting information – and misinformation – about health claims. The work is also be available on PolitiFact’s website. And, other news […]

PetaPixel: The AI-Generated Taylor Swift Wedding Photos Are Getting Debunked Really Quickly. “Is the Taylor Swift wedding a major turning point? No, I’m not talking about what it means for Miss Americana and her NFL husband — I’m talking about how quickly fake photos from the event last weekend are being refuted.”

The Guardian: Police warn about protest misinformation amid Glasgow disorder. “Scottish police have told people to factcheck online claims before going to protests, after crowds gathered outside two homes in Glasgow this week, in one case as a result of mistaken identity.”

Poynter: Opinion | Fact-checkers, don’t quit now: A call for endurance at GlobalFact 2026. “The International Fact-Checking Network brought together more than 300 journalists and researchers from across the globe this week in Vilnius, Lithuania, for GlobalFact 2026, the 13th annual conference. This essay is adapted from the opening welcome of the IFCN director.”

Duke Reporter’s Lab: 2026 census: Fact-checking losses continue amid funding pressure, but most projects persist. “For the first time in the Duke Reporters’ Lab count, three-times as many fact-checkers closed their doors as opened them last year. Our tally shows 10 new fact-checking projects in 2025, compared with more than 30 that stopped posting.”

Friday, May 8, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/05/friday-may-8-2026/

PsyPost: Deepfake videos degrade political reputations even when viewers realize they are fake. “Artificial intelligence can be used to generate deceptive videos that damage a politician’s reputation, even when viewers suspect the footage is fake. A new study published in Communication Research found that these manipulated clips decrease support for targeted candidates. Standard fact-checking […]

Thursday, April 9, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/04/thursday-april-9-2026/

Nutrition Insight: UCL scientists’ new tool detects risk of online nutrition misinformation. “Researchers from the University College London (UCL), UK, have developed a Diet-Nutrition Misinformation Risk Assessment Tool (Diet-MisRAT) to detect and evaluate online nutrition misinformation’s potential harm.”

Poynter: Fact-checking has to go where misinformation actually spreads. “In this environment, fact-checking remains indispensable, but its relevance can no longer be measured solely by the publication of articles. If it wants to continue to matter, fact-checking must stop imagining itself only as an editorial product and begin acting as a form of civic infrastructure. This shift begins with […]

Here's a nice *quantitative analysis* of Sir #TrumpVirus' State of the Union...

The qualitative ( #truth - #substance - and actual reflection of the #SOTU) is easy to summarize: 💩

> The Trump ‘Affordability’ Pivot That Never Came

https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/the-trump-affordability-pivot-that-never-came-state-of-the-union-inflation-housing-stock-market

> In his record-breakingly-long SOTU, the president spent more time talking about Venezuela than prices.

#Factchecks / #Lies numbers still in process.

#psychopathology #megalomania #GQP #TrumpEpsteinFiles #coverup #tariffs #Epstein

Nature: The science influencers going viral on TikTok to fight misinformation. “Cut to the real [Simon] Clark, who has a PhD in stratospheric dynamics and uses the handle @simonoxfphys, as he dismantles several myths about renewable energy using a deadpan style and a torrent of charts. The video, with almost 180,000 views, is an effort to fight misinformation by meeting people where they are, […]

State of Minnesota: New state webpage separates fraud facts from fiction​. “On Wednesday, Feb. 11, the Minnesota Department of Human Services launched a new fact check webpage to correct misleading information and outright false claims about Medicaid fraud in Minnesota.”

Spotted on LinkedIn: ImageWhisperer. Henk van Ess described it this way on his post: “Upload a suspicious photo and it instantly checks against a global database of debunked images, updated daily. If your photo matches a known fake, it shows you the debunk. It also has a ton of new features to detect photos that are not in that database.”

University of Exeter: Football-style ‘Video Assistant Referee’ tackles climate misinformation. “Available online and as an app, ClimaVAR assesses climate information, flagging content as onside/in game (accurate), or showing it a yellow (misleading/partially incorrect) or red card/offside (false or harmful). It also provides the user with scientific references to where the information was […]

Donald Trump's GOON #HowardLutnick SCRAMBLES after Fox "news" FINALLY #fact-checks him on Trump's IMPOSSIBLE claims on prices. @[email protected] and @[email protected] break it down on @[email protected] youtu.be/Lrm5Z_DVd0U?...

Trump Goon BLINDSIDED After Fo...

#Trump: " #BigMedia practices #viewpointdiscrimination and outrageously #factchecks Americans trying to use their #FirstAmendment Rights."

Also #Trump: "Here's a new official federal government list of fake, subversive, lying, seditious, evil, terrible, treasonous news outlets we don't like."

https://apnews.com/article/trump-press-media-bias-hall-of-shame-4571e8bfc924de0d83529b635be0a68c

LatAm Journalism Review: Five tools to detect, analyze and counter disinformation. “The following list brings together five tools that media outlets and fact-checking organizations use for tasks ranging from tracking disinformation and analyzing its dissemination patterns, to recovering deleted content and analyzing audiovisual material.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/02/latam-five-tools-to-detect-analyze-and-counter-disinformation/

European Broadcasting Union: EBU to open digital Ukraine Archive as trustworthy source of material for journalists, researchers and other investigators. “The EBU has launched an extensive digital archive of curated audiovisual news content documenting the war in Ukraine since February 2022. The Ukraine Archive, created in partnership with EBU Members and supported by numerous international […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/23/european-broadcasting-union-ebu-to-open-digital-ukraine-archive-as-trustworthy-source-of-material-for-journalists-researchers-and-other-investigators/

University of Rochester: The most effective online fact-checkers? Your peers. “Research shows that being called out by peers, not algorithms or experts, makes online authors think twice about spreading misinformation.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/19/university-of-rochester-the-most-effective-online-fact-checkers-your-peers/

Digital Trends: I asked Google Gemini to fact-check ChatGPT. The results were hilarious. “I decided to put this to the test and asked ChatGPT a few questions about the history of electric cars, a few historical facts, and several other prompts that led to hallucinations. Then, I ran the responses ChatGPT provided — which didn’t seem all that accurate — by Google Gemini as a fact-checking […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/12/digital-trends-i-asked-google-gemini-to-fact-check-chatgpt-the-results-were-hilarious/

Terence Eden: You did no fact checking, and I must scream. “Recently, the beloved actor Patricia Routledge died. Several newspapers reposted a piece of viral slop which I had debunked a month previously. Let’s go through the piece and see just how easy it is to prove false.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/10/07/terence-eden-you-did-no-fact-checking-and-i-must-scream/

Poynter: Live fact checks and updates about the 2025 federal government shutdown. “Trump and his administration — which has already defied norms on executive power — likely will seek to exert more power during the shutdown, including potentially laying off federal workers. PolitiFact is live fact-checking the shutdown, including rhetoric from both sides of the aisle.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/10/04/poynter-live-fact-checks-and-updates-about-the-2025-federal-government-shutdown/

University of Washington: Community Notes help reduce the virality of false information on X, study finds. “A University of Washington-led study of X found that posts with Community Notes attached were less prone to going viral and got less engagement. After getting a Community Note, on average, reposts dropped 46% and likes dropped 44%. “

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/09/21/university-of-washington-community-notes-help-reduce-the-virality-of-false-information-on-x-study-finds/

Nu op Mayonaise: Column: De vele leugens van Geert Wilders | Veel van Wilders’ uitspraken zitten vol met stelligheden die bijna geen nuance dulden: over de islam als religie, over moslims als groep, over cultuurverandering, over criminaliteit | #leugens #populisme #wilders #column #Factchecks

https://mayonai.se/column-de-vele-leugens-van-geert-wilders/

Poynter: Spotting the harmful needles in the haystack: How fact-checkers select what to check. “Most fact-checking organizations follow a broadly similar process: using a blend of digital search and human insight to sift myriad claims and focus on those they find matter most. To do this, we have developed a rigorous harms-based model for selecting important claims to check. In a trial we […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/07/spotting-the-harmful-needles-in-the-haystack-how-fact-checkers-select-what-to-check-poynter/

Poynter: Google backs away from search result snippets that address falsehoods. “Google decided to retire ClaimReview, a program little known outside the fact-checking world that highlighted fact checks from reputable news sources like PolitiFact, The Washington Post Fact Checker or Factcheck.org. The program was international in scale, also surfacing results from fact-checkers like Spain’s […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/31/poynter-google-backs-away-from-search-result-snippets-that-address-falsehoods/