How fact-checkers delimit their scope of practices and use sources: Comparing professional and partisan practitioners

Abstract

Fact-checkers, as their names suggest, are supposedly agents who check the validity of “facts.” But in reality, how do fact-checkers delimit the scope of their practices? What sources do they use to establish the truth and falsity of the examined materials? Do the practices of different types of fact-checkers vary in these aspects? This study examines how professional and partisan fact-checkers deal with facticity during a protest movement in Hong Kong. The content analysis shows that partisan fact-checkers, when compared to professional fact-checkers, are less likely to restrict themselves to debunking factual claims, and they are more likely to provide no source information for the materials used. Posts addressing “misleading claims,” as opposed to factual claims, are where partisan inclinations are more clearly exhibited. Moreover, partisan fact-checkers used government information in ways consistent with their political predilection. Implications of the findings on our understanding of the fact-checking enterprise are discussed.

Verificación de hechos (fact-checking) para la evaluación de la confiabilidad de fuentes en línea: conceptualización, actores, estrategias y elementos de factibilidad

“…b) Los esfuerzos de Fact-Checking han demostrado que el intento por cambiar las creencias de una audiencia ante la desinformación tiene efectos negativos, ya que, ante las justificaciones de valor expuestas, se reafirman las creencias no objetivas y las tendencias partidistas que se identifican como inexactas, ofrecen contraargumentaciones que fortalecen la desinformación (Young et al, 2017). c) Los Fact-Checkers no están libres de influencias partidistas, de defensa y de retórica, los cuales promueven sus propios intereses particulares (Tsang et al, 2022;Vinhas y Bastos, 2022), además de estar presente el sesgo del propio verificador de hechos y del público (Robertson et al, 2020;Rodríguez Rodríguez y López Pan, 2020).…”

Fact-checking of political information about the Russo-Ukrainian conflict

“…Tsang et al . (2022, p. 1360) have identified three ideal typical approaches to fact-checking of political information.…”

“…All in all, fact-checking serves as an intervention to either inoculate individuals from future influence or reduce the likelihood that false information influences civic discourse to begin with (Amazeen, 2020, p. 97). Tsang et al (2022Tsang et al ( , p. 1360 have identified three ideal typical approaches to fact-checking of political information. First, there are partisan fact-checkers, whose participation in political discourse is marked by an attempt to defend their own side and criticise the opposite side.…”