From Public Reason to Public Health: Professional Implications of the “Debunking Turn” in the Global Fact-Checking Field

The WEIRD Governance of Fact-Checking and the Politics of Content Moderation

“…Thirdly, the cooperation between fact-checking organizations and social platforms epitomized by Meta's 3PFC is an essential source of funding, but it has inadvertently moved fact-checkers away from their original responsibility of holding politicians to account. As shown by Graves et al (2023), Meta's program prevents fact-checkers from labeling politicians on Facebook, an approach that is not only at odds with the traditional public reason model of fact-checking, but runs counter to evidence showing that falsehoods and conspiracy theories usually come from prominent public figures (Brennen et al, 2020). The purported neutrality of tech companies in non-WEIRD contexts favors local elites and amplifies their control over the local media (Cunliffe-Jones et al, 2021); in addition, it may also be conducive to social upheaval that turn social platforms into tools for violence (Sablosky, 2021).…”

“…While most interviewees focused on both traditional forms of fact-checking (i.e., holding politicians to account and countering political propaganda) and social media debunking practices (Graves et al, 2023), a small subset displayed a particular focus on verifying viral claims, particularly in Asia.…”

“…With social platforms being the lynchpin where much political deliberation occurs, fact-checking organizations have sought to adapt their practices to the affordances and norms through which social platforms distribute and amplify content (Chadwick et al, 2022). This fundamentally asymmetric relationship with social platforms compels fact-checkers to contend with trade-offs in their traditional methods and publication strategies (Belair-Gagnon et al, 2023), a source of conflict that impinges on the core democratic values of fact-checking and its commitment toward improving public reasoning (Graves et al, 2023).…”

How Effective Are Fact-checks in Pakistan and Who Engages with Them?

“…Fact-checking has become a key element in the fight against misinformation, defined here as the systematic publication of assessments regarding the validity of claims made by public officials and institutions, with an explicit attempt to identify whether a claim is factual (Walter et al, 2020, p. 351). However, with the growing permeation, production, and circulation of misinformation, fact-checking in the last few years has not remained limited to public officials and institutions but also encompasses viral hoaxes and conspiracy theories, leading to a substantial increase in the number and prominence of fact-checking organizations (Graves et al, 2023;Jiang et al, 2023).…”

Verification Agencies on TikTok: The Case of MediaWise and Politifact

“…Snopes.com, created in 1995, is considered the first fact-checking initiative [38], although it was not until the new century that the first verification agencies focusing on politicians' statements appeared. FactCheck.org was created in 2003 and Politifact (Poynter) in 2004, along with a verification programme that the Washington Post also launched in that period.…”