FAQ

We publish topical, original fact checks that align with the public interest and address trending misinformation narratives.

Our fact checkers use data, analytics and editorial judgment to identify and prioritize claims with significant potential for harm. Our experienced editorial team and expert fact checkers assess the spread of individual claims and the impacts of their dissemination.

Logically Facts will investigate a claim that meets the following criteria:

• It is a statement made in a public or publicly accessible online forum
• It can be properly assessed as reasonable or simply true or false
• It can be assessed on the basis of publicly available commonly held standards of reasonability
• Logically Facts can only fact-check assertions or sentences which can be interpreted as assertions. An assertion is any sentence that aims to make somebody believe something to be true.

Sometimes an otherwise valid claim cannot be settled by any evidence to which we have access, nor could we have access in the future. These will usually be claims which are entirely grounded in matters of taste, historical claims that no evidence can bear upon, or claims of a fundamentally moral or religious nature.

We will not engage with claims where we believe it would be irresponsible to do so. This may be because we do not have the domain expertise, or the capacity to give sufficient context to a claim, which would make any judgment we could make ultimately unhelpful. We will also not engage with trolls nor entertain harmful conspiracies unless there is a clear journalistic case for publishing a rebuttal.

First, we trace the origins of a claim and analyze its full context. Then we cite as many primary sources as possible to either support or refute it.

Once we have enough evidence, we assess how reliable we believe the claim is and draft a report about our findings. We also detail the path we followed to find our evidence. This report is the fact check. Once it passes through several levels of review, we publish our findings.

Logically Facts’ fact checkers must find at least two sources to cite in their fact checks. These can be, but are not limited to: 

• First-hand quotes from experts, eyewitnesses, stakeholders or authorities
• Academic journals and research
• Reports from established, reputable news sources
• Information obtained through Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analysis including techniques like keyframe analysis, reverse image searches and geolocation.

Once fact checkers have identified a claim, it must be approved by a team lead, assistant editor or the regional lead. After a draft of the fact check is complete, Logically Facts’ team lead regional lead reviews the report for editorial rigour (evidence, structure, argument, quotes from experts, eyewitnesses, stakeholders or authorities). After the first review is done, Logically Facts’ assistant editors are responsible for ensuring that the copy and sources are reputable, accurate, and free of grammatical errors. Assistant editors then flag any outstanding queries over assessment, sources, or other editorial decisions to the fact checker and senior members of the fact-checking unit before the fact check is published.

It is helpful to depend on publicly available and authoritative sources of information rather than on unreliable ones because reliable sources will tend to give you more accurate and complete information.

It is unhelpful to accept claims that are weakly justified by the available evidence or potentially misleading or manipulative because they will tend to promote false beliefs rather than true ones.

We apply five different ratings to our fact checks. They aim to provide a quick summary of our findings and a verdict about the reliability of the claim:

• TRUE - This claim is entirely justified by the available evidence and helpful in understanding the point at issue.
• PARTLY TRUE - This claim may be misleading in some nonsubstantive respects but is still helpful in understanding the point at issue.
• MISLEADING - This claim is mostly unhelpful in understanding the point at issue, even though elements of this claim may be justified by available evidence.
• FALSE - This claim is entirely unjustified by the available evidence.
• UNVERIFIABLE - This claim cannot be verified based on the available evidence.

Logically Facts’ mission is to reduce and eventually eliminate the harms associated with mis- and disinformation. We are proud supporters of free speech and oppose censorious approaches to individual expression online. However, where misleading and deceptive online discourse causes individual and societal harms, we believe it needs to be identified and addressed. We believe that it is both possible and desirable to be politically engaged without being prejudicial, to debate and disagree with honesty and integrity, and to demand the highest standards of courtesy, rationality, and respect from political allies and opposition alike.

We believe that the best way to achieve this is by developing non-partisan, unbiased resources to establish what facts are beyond dispute, what positions can be reasonably held on the basis of those facts, and to give everybody the resources necessary to argue for what they believe without undermining our shared commitment to arguing on the basis of facts.

As employees of Logically Facts, we understand that in order to play our part in establishing what is true and what is not, Logically Facts must be trusted across the political spectrum. Furthermore, we understand that while being politically engaged is a civic duty, our role as an independent fact-checking organization requires that our work be motivated by broad political and ethical considerations which transcend our individual partisan political interests.

As such, we undertake to ensure that all our work at Logically Facts is free from bias and partisan interest and that our personal political views will never influence our work, nor should our work ever permit reasonable suspicion of being unduly influenced by our own partisan or political views. Furthermore, we undertake to comport ourselves in our private lives and our online and other communications in ways that can never undermine the position of Logically Facts as an unbiased, non-partisan organization. All employees must commit to our non-partisanship policy.

Our shareholders, clients, or our parent company The Logically Ltd. have no control over our fact-checking workflow, nor can they offer any input in our editorial decision-making. Senior members of the fact-checking unit (regional leads) are responsible for editorial rigor, quality, and consistency. The global head of fact-checking Jaskirat Singh Bawa is ultimately responsible for editorial policy and standards throughout the global fact-checking team. The Vice President of Fact-Checking Baybars Orsek is in charge of overseeing the operation, administrating the P&L of the business and managing accounts with clients and stakeholders. More can be found on the ‘meet the team’ page.

When dealing with claims and fact checks, our fact-checkers work under the supervision of senior fact-checkers and assistant editors in a three-level structure.

Any potentially contentious editorial decisions, complaints, or necessary corrections involve the direct intervention of the editorial and operations leads, who also report to the Global Head of Fact-checking.

A dedicated compliance and policy manager assists the head of the team to ensure the fact-checking team's standards remain in line with the best practices and policies implemented by the global fact-checking community.

Different kinds of evidence justify different kinds of claims; empirical claims may be justified by scientific research, economic predictions may be justified by appealing to expert bodies, political claims may be justified by polling data, or by appealing to generally agreed upon political principles. Additionally, there are standards that different kinds of evidence can meet, which allows for comparison of quality.

In our hierarchy of sources, we prefer sources rated higher than lower. Wherever applicable, we also prefer primary sources (first-hand information) to secondary sources (information about primary sources). We will always state if there is reason to believe a cited source is unreliable or if there is a plausible conflict of interest in their reporting.

Our rule of thumb for determining the quality of a source is to ask, “how much would they have to gain or lose by misleading us?" A source that has more credibility to lose by making a mistake (like a respected researcher) will tend to be more reliable than one with less to lose (such as an anonymous social media post). We require at least two sources of the highest available quality to confirm a judgment on a claim.

• Expert Consensus: Where internationally-respected organizations and experts in the relevant field explicitly have accepted the basis for our judgment as indisputable, either in published research or an official statement.
• Peer Reviewed Research: Findings and conclusions published in articles in reputed, peer-reviewed journals.
• Non-Partisan Government/Official Sources: Information, including statistics, policy, and law, from reliable, reputable, and non-partisan government agencies, subject to appropriate verification. This includes statements from national bodies which have a reputation for authority and accuracy (such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or international bodies such as the World Health Organisation or the World Bank). It would not include any statement from any partisan political figure, political party, or their spokespeople (unless the issue relates directly to them and the issue in question is within their exclusive knowledge).
• Expert Opinion: Non-peer-reviewed research or other forms of authoritative opinion given by individuals or organizations  with established expertise or strong existing ties to respectable international bodies relevant to the claim.
• Non-Expert Journalistic Investigation: Investigation by people with no particular subject expertise but who have strong institutional ties to respectable journalistic outlets, investigative bodies, or research institutions.
• Eyewitness Accounts: First-hand accounts of events by people who directly witnessed them (such accounts must always be corroborated).

Fact checks may need to be revised for several reasons, including the emergence of new information, the discovery of new evidence, or correcting typographical errors. If you believe we have made an error in any aspect of one of our fact checks, contact us through one of the “Calls to Action”on each of our published fact checks. 

Each fact check comes with a unique identifier, which allows our editorial team to quickly retrieve any fact check that may be the subject of an update, complaint, or correction.

• Fact checks edited with substantive corrections will be marked as 'correction' l.
• Fact checks edited with non-substantive corrections (to fix spelling, grammatical or other mistakes that do not contribute to the substance of the claim or judgment) will be marked as 'updated.'
• Complaints will be assessed by senior members of the fact-checking unit and promptly responded to, with explanations provided for our decision to either correct a fact check or leave it as is.
• If you are not satisfied with our response, you will be able to issue a further complaint to our senior editorial members of the fact-checking unit, who will take any necessary steps to address the issue, up to and including appointing an independent advisor to investigate the claim.
• Users who have received or tracked a fact check which is the subject of an update or a correction, will be notified.

If you notice something published through our journalistic, research, or educational function which you believe to be inaccurate, misleading, or unfair, please submit a correction request through the form at the end of the page. Any complaints will be raised to our editorial leads and responded to within 48 hours. Any complaint found to have substantive merit will be publicly corrected, and the correction will be given equal prominence to the article in question. We offer anybody who was the subject of criticism in our reporting the right to reply, provided a prima facie case can be made that our criticisms can be fairly addressed. Reasons for any refusal to grant a right to reply will be published on our website.

If you believe Logically Facts is violating the IFCN code of principles, you can inform the IFCN directly here