What does Gigafact do?

Gigafact leverages technology, partnerships and journalism best practices to push back on misinformation, advance the facts surrounding important civic issues and help safeguard democracy.

Our approach is to take a proven technique of claim intervention (or fact-checking) and scale it to the pace and volumes of misinformation on social media. Gigafact does this by recruiting high quality information sources to participate in high-speed fact-checking of online claims. From there, we ensure their work has the greatest possible impact. As part of their participation, our partner organizations receive editorial training, funding, a unique publishing platform, an AI-powered tipline tool, engagement best practices, a talent pipeline and more.

We believe that enabling outstanding newsrooms to participate in cutting edge fact-checking activities will make a meaningful dent in the misinformation crisis and shore up the foundational knowledge needed for a functioning democratic process.

Fact briefs published on Gigafact

Gigafact tipline

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: The global effectiveness of fact-checking

Who funds Gigafact?

The bulk of Gigafact’s funding to-date has come to date from Repustar, a benefit corporation building solutions to combat misinformation. Repustar has also donated the technology platform that powers Gigafact.

Our other funding sources are listed on our “About” section of our website. Gigafact lists all individuals or entities that donate $5000 or more.

Gigafact has applied for 501(c)3 status. In the meantime, we accept donations via the Institute for Nonprofit News. If you would like to support us, please visit the link below.

About Gigafact

Donate to Gigafact

Repustar

How does Gigafact collaborate with other organizations?

Gigafact invites nonpartisan newsrooms to join its network and receive training and tools to publish fact briefs. When possible, Gigafact provides funding to kickstart a newsroom’s fact brief program. If funding is not available, Gigafact collaborates with the newsroom to apply for external grants to support the effort.

For the social media platforms looking to address misinformation, Gigafact offers different paths for accessing fact briefs, including an API, email alerts, RSS feeds, and more.

Gigafact contributor criteria

Gigafact resources for professionals

How do fact briefs differ from traditional fact checks?

Fact briefs are highly standardized, short articles that always pose a question in the title and answer it with a definitive "yes/no" response. Each fact brief is no more than 150 words and are backed up by credible, often primary sources. All fact briefs include a link back to the original claim being addressed on social media.

See all fact briefs

Who can publish a fact brief on Gigafact?

Gigafact is working to ensure fact briefs are trusted sources. They should be viewed as high quality, non polarizing pieces of journalism that reject partisan point scoring in favor of pursuing facts—all while being relevant to modern media consumption patterns.

Building and maintaining this trust is a hard needle to thread in our polarized times, and we are intentional about selecting partners who align with this mission. To that end, Gigafact seeks out organizations that have an outsized commitment to enhancing public understanding via nonpartisan journalism. The following criteria and standards help us evaluate partner candidates, and are expected to evolve over time.

News organizations:

Newsrooms with an outsized commitment to factual reporting, as opposed to opinion, commentary, or analysis are considered as potential partners. At this point, Gigafact is focused on on-boarding well-reputed local or regional newsrooms that offer broad news coverage to general audiences, as these are often the public’s most trusted news sources. We recognize many newsrooms fall outside this criteria, including those with a more specific mission to speak for particular policies, under-served communities or interests. We hope to expand the Gigafact criteria in the near future to accommodate their work.

Non-news organizations:

Gigafact also selectively welcomes academic and research organizations whose primary mission is to explain complex, topical issues using great sources and data in a non-partisan manner. We view this as an opportunity to fill important subject matter gaps that may be left with our local and regional news coverage model, and we lean towards organizations whose mission is to advance public understanding rather than to advocate for particular policies.

We look at third party ratings of factuality, bias, ownership, governance and funding transparency, if those exist, but we do our own research and make our own decisions.

Editorial Posture and Requirements

Dedication to combating misinformation

Partners should have a strong interest in pushing back on misinformation in their communities and domains.

Dedication to maintaining trust

Partners must have commitments to nonpartisanship, transparency and accuracy stated on their website.

Knight Foundation: Local News Most Trusted in Keeping Americans Informed About Their Communities

Gigafact Editorial Guidelines

How does Gigafact work to minimize the potential for bias in fact briefs?

All Gigafact partner organizations who publish fact briefs must commit to upholding a set of principles for transparency, accuracy and non-partisanship.

Additionally, we also insist that fact brief writers and editors check their ideologies at the door when they publish. Everyone has biases, but we are trying hard to build a culture and writing process that fosters unclouded assessments of underlying facts and data.

Fact briefs have been designed to be less ideologically inflammatory. They are short, require the use of first-hand data in most cases, remove the “who” or “why” from consideration whenever possible, and employ a sober and educational tone.

Finally, Gigafact is creating a set of governing principles to keep things on track, and working hard to create a list of donors who represent a wide spectrum of backgrounds and ideologies. More to come on this.

See all fact briefs

Gigafact Editorial Guidelines

How do contributors decide which sources to use?

Contributors look for data, research and documents from credible, impartial sources. You will typically find they rely largely on these types of documents:

Research findings: Published reports and studies from academic and scientific publications, accredited educational institutions, public-sector bodies at all levels of government and nonpartisan nonprofits. When citing private organizations, contributors are asked to ensure that the source has clearly identified objectives and transparent disclosures about governance and financing.
Public documents: Official statistical databases, publicly available legal documents and filings, official statements and reports, transcripts of public proceedings, legislative texts and reports.
Interview or eyewitness accounts: Video, audio or written commentary and discussion attributed to individuals and organizations. These may sometimes be contained in the cited news items from national or local news providers. Local news reports may sometimes offer first-hand reporting and documentation that’s not otherwise available. Tweets and other social-media posts may be included if no other documentation is easily shared.

When a relevant data source is difficult to access, a contributor occasionally may compile the information on a shared document hosted on a cloud service account managed by Repustar. The sources of the underlying data or research will be noted and linked, if possible.

See all fact briefs

What if I have concerns or questions about a fact brief's finding?

Gigafact welcomes feedback about our work. If you have any concerns or questions you may contact the Gigafact team anytime via Twitter @GigafactProject or by emailing us.

If there appears to be a factual error, our editorial team will review and, if needed, the brief will be updated. Any updates are acknowledged in the brief.

FAQ