The internet is filled with falsehoods. The motives for lying vary. In poorer countries, ad revenue from click-throughs is a great living for a teen. Some believe they're doing the world a service by publishing a lie, followed by an article that repudiates it - even if the repudiation article sees far less reach. Some are jokes that people believe anyway. In the worst cases, those in power seek to expand their control by lying to their own supporters.
An obvious negative impact is that this is helping decide our elections, but the deeper problem is that we can't solve our problems if we don't understand them. When people debate ways to solve a problem, compromise can get us to a solution. But when people disagree on what our problems even are - disagree on reality - we're not going anywhere.
The good news is there is a single, objective reality out there that can be tested and measured, and it provides us an opportunity to come together. An individual can gather data and findings of fact on their own, but that provides a relatively small view of the world. To broaden that understanding, you need to rely on great journalism. The best journalism demonstrates a clear duty to the truth.
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." The goal of this site (and plugin) is to embrace the fact most people are unsure how to evaluate the honesty of journalism, help you learn, and accelerate the identification of fake and real news. It's clear there's a business model to fake news; if we can get fewer people clicking False headlines, maybe we can get more readers seeking honest journalists. If you're a strong fact-checker yourself, our crowd-sourced fact-checks can save you a ton of time, with clear rulings and cited sources.
For desktop users, the plugin is the easiest option. It injects fact-checks right into your feed. For mobile users, mobile browsers don't support plugins yet, but this website is mobile-friendly. You can copy-paste URLs into the homepage, and you'll see the fact-checks or site reputation we have on file.