Fact-checking


Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such checking done in-house by the publisher to prevent inaccurate content from being published; when the text is analyzed by a third party, the process is called external fact-checking.
Research suggests that fact-checking can indeed correct perceptions among citizens, as well as discourage politicians from spreading false or misleading claims. However, corrections may decay over time or be overwhelmed by cues from elites who promote less accurate claims. Political fact-checking is sometimes criticized as being opinion journalism.

History of fact-checking

Sensationalist newspapers in the 1850s and later led to a gradual need for a more factual media. Colin Dickey has described the subsequent evolution of fact-checking. Key elements were the establishment of Associated Press in the 1850s, Ralph Pulitzer of the New York World, Henry Luce and Time magazine, and the famous fact-checking department of The New Yorker. More recently, the mainstream media has come under severe economic threat from online startups. In addition, the rapid spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories via social media is slowly creeping into mainstream media. One solution is for more media staff to be assigned a fact-checking role, as for example The Washington Post. Independent fact-checking organisations have also become prominent, such as PolitiFact.

Types of fact-checking

Ante hoc fact-checking aims to identify errors so that the text can be corrected before dissemination, or perhaps rejected. Post hoc fact-checking is most often followed by a written report of inaccuracies, sometimes with a visual metric provided by the checking organization. Several organizations are devoted to post hoc fact-checking: examples include FactCheck.org and PolitiFact in the US, Full Fact in the UK, and Africa Check in several nations within the African continent.
External post hoc fact-checking organizations first arose in the US in the early 2000s, and the concept grew in relevance and spread to various other countries during the 2010s.

''Post hoc'' fact-checking

External post hoc fact-checking by independent organizations began in the United States in the early 2000s. In the 2010s, particularly following the 2016 election of Donald Trump as US President, fact-checking gained a rise in popularity and spread to multiple countries mostly in Europe and Latin America. However, the US remains the largest market for fact-checking.

Consistency across fact-checking organizations

One 2016 study finds that fact-checkers PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, and The Washington Posts Fact Checker overwhelmingly agree on their evaluations of claims. A 2018 paper found little overlap in the statements checked by different fact-checking organizations. This paper compared 1,178 published fact-checks from PolitiFact with 325 fact-checks from The Washington Posts Fact Checker, and found only 77 statements that both organizations checked. For those 77 statements, the fact-checking organizations gave the same ratings for 49 statements and similar ratings for 22, about 92% agreement.

Choice of which statements to check

Different fact-checking organizations have shown different tendencies in their choice of which statements they publish fact-checks about. For example, some are more likely to fact-check a statement about climate change being real, and others are more likely to fact-check a statement about climate change being fake.

Effects

Studies of post hoc fact-checking have made clear that such efforts often result in changes in the behavior, in general, of both the speaker and of the listener or reader ; observations include the propensities of audiences to be completely unpersuaded by corrections to errors regarding the most divisive subjects, or the tendency to be more greatly persuaded by corrections of negative reporting, and to see minds changed only when the individual in error was someone reasonably like-minded to begin with.

Correcting misperceptions

Studies have shown that fact-checking can affect citizens' belief in the accuracy of claims made in political advertisement. A 2020 study by Paris School of Economics and Sciences Po economists found that falsehoods by Marine Le Pen during the 2017 French presidential election campaign successfully persuaded voters, lost their persuasiveness when fact-checked, and did not reduce voters' political support for Le Pen when her claims were fact-checked. A 2017 study in the Journal of Politics found that "individuals consistently update political beliefs in the appropriate direction, even on facts that have clear implications for political party reputations, though they do so cautiously and with some bias... Interestingly, those who identify with one of the political parties are no more biased or cautious than pure independents in their learning, conditional on initial beliefs."
A study by Yale University cognitive scientists Gordon Pennycook, Adam Bear, Evan Collins, and David G. Rand found that Facebook tags of fake articles "did significantly reduce their perceived accuracy relative to a control without tags, but only modestly". A Dartmouth study led by Brendan Nyhan found that Facebook tags had a greater impact than the Yale study found. A "disputed" tag on a false headline reduced the number of respondents who considered the headline accurate from 29% to 19%, whereas a "rated false" tag pushed the number down to 16%. A 2019 study found that the "disputed" tag reduced Facebook users' intentions to share a fake news story. The Yale study found evidence of a backfire effect among Trump supporters younger than 26 years whereby the presence of both untagged and tagged fake articles made the untagged fake articles appear more accurate. In response to research which questioned the effectiveness of the Facebook "disputed" tags, Facebook decided to drop the tags in December 2017 and would instead put articles which fact-checked a fake news story next to the fake news story link whenever it is shared on Facebook.
Based on the findings of a 2017 study in the journal Psychological Science, the most effective ways to reduce misinformation through corrections is by:
  • limiting detailed descriptions of / or arguments in favor of the misinformation;
  • walking through the reasons why a piece of misinformation is false rather than just labelling it false;
  • presenting new and credible information which allows readers to update their knowledge of events and understand why they developed an inaccurate understanding in the first place;
  • using video, as videos appear to be more effective than text at increasing attention and reducing confusion, making videos more effective at correcting misperception than text.
Large studies by Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood found that misinformation propagated by Donald Trump was more difficult to dispel with the same techniques, and generated the following recommendations:
  • Highly credible sources are the most effective, especially those which surprisingly report facts against their own perceived bias
  • Reframing the issue by adding context can be more effective than simply labeling it as incorrect or unproven.
  • Challenging readers' identity or worldview reduces effectiveness.
  • Fact-checking immediately is more effective, before false ideas have spread widely.
A 2019 meta-analysis of research into the effects of fact-checking on misinformation found that fact-checking has substantial positive impacts on political beliefs, but that this impact weakened when fact-checkers used "truth scales", refuted only parts of a claim and when they fact-checked campaign-related statements. Individuals' preexisting beliefs, ideology, and knowledge affected to what extent the fact-checking had an impact. A 2019 study in the Journal of Experimental Political Science found "strong evidence that citizens are willing to accept corrections to fake news, regardless of their ideology and the content of the fake stories."
A 2018 study found that Republicans were more likely to correct their false information on voter fraud if the correction came from Breitbart News rather than a non-partisan neutral source such as PolitiFact. A 2022 study found that individuals exposed to a fact-check of a false statement by a far-right politician were less likely to share the false statement.
Some studies have found that exposure to fact-checks had durable effects on reducing misperceptions, whereas other studies have found no effects.
Scholars have debated whether fact-checking could lead to a "backfire effect" whereby correcting false information may make partisan individuals cling more strongly to their views. One study found evidence of such a "backfire effect", but several other studies did not.

Political discourse

A 2015 experimental study found that fact-checking can encourage politicians to not spread misinformation. The study found that it might help improve political discourse by increasing the reputational costs or risks of spreading misinformation for political elites. The researchers sent, "a series of letters about the risks to their reputation and electoral security if they were caught making questionable statements. The legislators who were sent these letters were substantially less likely to receive a negative fact-checking rating or to have their accuracy questioned publicly, suggesting that fact-checking can reduce inaccuracy when it poses a salient threat."
Fact-checking may also encourage some politicians to engage in "strategic ambiguity" in their statements, which "may impede the fact-checking movement's goals."