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Fact-checking needs to evolve to meet new challenges

Peter Cunliffe-Jones and Guy Berger

Alarm about disinformation and misinformation surged around the world after 2016. The moment seemed dramatic. Countries experienced unanticipated election outcomes after false news reports surged on social media. 

The events inspired researchers Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan to coin a new term for what was happening – “information disorder.” It implies a dysfunctionality in the information system, caused by the spread of false information, in the way that a medical disorder disrupts our individual health. 

Fact-checking groups existed long before the events of 2016, but soon fighting dis- and misinformation became a rallying cry for fact-checkers and civil society groups alarmed by what they were seeing: false messages that spread virally online, going hand in hand with political rhetoric that promoted false claims through mainstream media and in-person events. 

Fact-checking, they believed, would help treat this new disorder. If only it were so simple. 

In fact, media leaders in Africa realized early on that in many parts of the world, the problem of information disorder is not limited to the spread of false claims. At a November 2017 meeting at the Johannesburg offices of Africa Check, the leaders of media and civil society organizations from a dozen countries agreed that they were seeing something more. False information was one thing, but in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South — and even in the Global North during natural disasters, security incidents and the COVID-19 health crisis — it was combined with a lack of access to accurate information. That was paired with the human tendency toward motivated reasoning and a lack of critical thinking. 

Simply fighting against “dis- and misinformation” was clearly not enough.

Soon enough, the framing of “fighting information disorder” was dismissed by opponents as a flawed endeavour; they argued for an information marketplace where individuals would fend for themselves. Authoritarian governments, too, used “information disorder” as an inverse of their own quests for “information order,” which meant officially defined “truth” and state-created agencies that determined what information was acceptable. In other words, “information disorder” was getting co-opted. 

To avoid these risks, what’s needed now is a framing that captures the full scope of fact-checkers’ work — and shows what they’re fighting for; not just what they’re against—a framing that would be more resilient in the face of attacks.

Enter the recent concept of “information integrity”. The term is now being promoted by some fact-checkers and international organizations, like the UNDP and the G20.

The Africa Facts Network — formed out of that 2017 Johannesburg meeting — recently committed to fighting for information integrity by engaging “civil society, responsive governments, technology platforms, regional, global and multilateral institutions and communities to build information hygiene, integrity and entrench information resilience.” This was the core of a statement released after the sixth annual summit of African fact-checkers, which we attended in Accra, Ghana, in October. Their declaration highlighted the need to address gendered disinformation, linguistic diversity, vulnerable and offline communities, the climate crisis, public distrust of the media, resource challenges and politically sensitive environments as areas of special concern for African fact-checkers.

Achieving information integrity certainly requires fact-checking. But the concept also points clearly to other indispensable preconditions, which many fact-checking organizations also address. Notably:

•Promoting accurate and independent journalism

•Opening up state (and, as appropriate, private sector) information and data archives

•Reinforcing people’s abilities to resist junk content, and strengthening their agency as critical consumers and producers of content

Information integrity not only describes a positive goal, but the formulation can also help counter the attacks that fact-checkers are part of a so-called “censorship industrial complex.” Information integrity underlines the idea that fact-checking is actually an essential part of exercising free speech.

The new concept can move the debate away from arguments about the motives of purveyors of falsehoods and the challenge of proving intent to mislead. This is especially relevant when addressing content produced by generative artificial intelligence, which is frequently incorrect. In many cases, the results can be downright wrong but lack deliberate intent.

The umbrella model of information integrity is also in action right now. Fact-checking organizations have for years engaged in a range of activities beyond correcting myths and falsehoods. Many have long worked towards a plurality of information sources known for accuracy, as well as engaging in media and information literacy initiatives so that members of the public know to pause before they click.  

In Europe, the Spanish fact-checking organization Maldita, for example, holds regular meetings with political groups in parliament to discuss the challenge of dis- and misinformation. (As a result, the parliamentary leader of one party recently reported that they now require staff to provide footnotes for sources of any claims they make.) Africa Check provides a service, known as Info Finder, that serves as an information helpdesk for under-resourced media, helping journalists find accurate information on important topics in half a dozen countries. In Latin America, the fact-checking organization Chequeado works in schools to ensure that students have the best skills to identify trustworthy sources of information. 

There’s room for even more work to be done here, and fact-checking operations can embrace the various roles they can play within a framework that promotes information integrity. In addition to debunking and pre-bunking, they can call out actual censorship and transparency deficits, especially when the public should have access to information it’s not getting. Fact-checkers can champion the availability and prominence of accurate journalism. And they can help the general public develop their own skills to navigate the ever-more complex landscape.  

“Countering information disorder” has served fact-checkers well for almost a decade. Updating it in favor of “fighting for information integrity” can help to position practitioners to embrace what’s coming up next.

Peter Cunliffe-Jones founded Africa Check in 2012, and is a visiting researcher at the University of Westminster, in London. His book “Fake News – What’s the Harm? Four ideas for fact-checkers, policymakers and platforms” is due out in 2025.

Guy Berger is professor emeritus, Rhodes University, South Africa, a fellow at Research ICT Africa, and former UNESCO director for freedom of expression and media development. He oversaw the UNESCO publication “Journalism, fake news and disinformation”, now available in 33 languages. He led research for the 2024 G20 publications “Mapping the Information Integrity Debate” and “Possible Approaches to Information Integrity.” 

This article was originally published on Poynter.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.