The New Fact Checking Universe

One of the most valued innovations consequent to the current overwhelm of disinformation especially through AI-generated videos and photographs on the internet, has been the enhanced appearance of credible fact checking organizations. Their work is readily available, and free, to the public.

This could not be more timely. The most recent survey from the Reuters Institute/University of Oxford found that 57 per cent of Americans studied had difficulty discerning fact from disinformation. The overwhelming appearance of such disinformation has made the internet unreliable for news coverage –alarming, since most people between the ages of 18-25 get all of their news from it.

The process used for fact checking is important as well. A recent development is the rise of community-based fact checking, a system that Facebook announced when it dismissed its team of fact checkers, and which Tik Tok just announced it would be using. In this scheme, readers can post their comments/corrections directly on the story they are fact checking. This method has several problems: commenters may or may not cite sources to verify their corrections, they may flag content they disagree with regardless of factual accuracy, and they may not have the specialized knowledge to critique content. Community-based fact checking  is not an answer to professional fact checking by accredited organizations.

The Media Literacy Coalition counsels everyone to check facts on news items they read that engenders an emotional reaction or is in conflict with other reports they read, or if the source of the news is suspicious or appears to be biased. Credible fact checks are available often weekly, or even daily, from providers like PolitiFact, the AP (Associated Press), RumorGuard from the News Literacy Project (here is an example), and Factcheck.org.

These days, news comes in a torrent, not a steady drip.  Now is the time to ensure you are not a victim of misrepresentations or outright distortions. Disinformation allowed to go unchallenged can cause actual harm.