Full Fact
Founded2009
FoundersMichael Samuel and Will Moy
Typecharity
Registration no.1158683[1]
Location
Coordinates51°30′19″N 0°08′11″W / 51.505194°N 0.136471°W / 51.505194; -0.136471
Websitefullfact.org

Full Fact is a British charity, based in London, which checks and corrects facts reported in the news as well as claims which circulate on social media.

History and structure

Full Fact was founded in 2009 by businessman Michael Samuel, the charity's chair, and Will Moy, who served as director. It has 18 staff as of 2019.[2] Moy had been working as a researcher for Lord Low and noticed that lobbyists often provided inaccurate briefings to legislators,[3] while Samuel had been concerned about accuracy in public debate for some years. Moy and Samuel were introduced by Julia Neuberger and began working together.

Full Fact applied to the Charity Commission for charitable status in 2009 but was refused. An appeal to the commission's tribunal in 2011 was rejected on the grounds that the stated objective of "civic engagement" was too political. Charitable status was granted in 2014 after the wording was changed to "the advancement of public education".[4][5]

In March 2017, the International Fact Checking Network certified Full Fact as a fact-checker.[6]

Moy resigned in April 2023, citing need for change at the top of the organization, joining the Campbell Collaboration as CEO that works on systematic reviews.[7] Chris Moris became the new CEO in September 2023.[8]

Methodology

Full Fact initially rated material on a five-point scale, using a magnifying glass as a symbol instead of a star. It dropped this system as it felt such ratings were unreliable and did not help its reputation.[9]

The fact-checking process includes a three-stage review[10] and facts also may be reviewed by external academics.[10]

Full Fact has been sponsored to develop automated fact-checking tools by the Omidyar Network and Open Society Foundations. Live is one such tool which will immediately check statements against a database of verified facts. The other tool, called Trends, will track and display the spread of false information.[11]

Full Fact offers three-month secondments to statisticians working in the Government Statistical Service. Secondees have performed activities such as fact-checking Question Time and providing guidance on presenting statistics. Full Fact has also partnered with media organisations including the BBC, ITV, and Sky News to provide information about political campaigns including the Scottish and UK-EU referendums and the general elections of 2015 and 2017. It also provided evidence to the Leveson Inquiry and the BBC Trust's impartiality review.[12]

Framework for information incidents

Full fact created a framework for so-called information incidents which is used by the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum to assess information incidents.[13] The creation of this framework was supported by a grant by Facebook.[14] It deals with three classifications of data that should be responded to: Misinformation, Disinformation,and Malinformation.[14] The framework was produced with consultation with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, International Fact-Checking Network, Google, Facebook and Twitter amongst others.[14] The framework defines 5 level of incident.[15]

Focus

Fact-checking the UK's EU referendum[16]

In 2016, Full Fact checked claims made during the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum campaign.[17] In 2017, Full Fact worked with a similar organisation named First Draft to carry out fact-checking during the UK general election.[18]

On 11 January 2019, it was announced that Full Fact would be providing fact-checking services to the Facebook platform.[19]

In January 2022, Full Fact signed a letter of fact checkers calling for YouTube to stop algorithms from suggesting videos of creators deemed to be spreading misinformation or disinformation as well as to display contextual information on videos deemed to be spreading such information.[20]

In evidence submitted regarding the Online Safety Bill, Full Fact argued for widening the definition of harmful content to be suppressed to include content that is harmful to democracy and society, not just individuals.[21] They argued that suppressed content should specified by legislation for increased democratic oversight, arguing that there was de facto censorship-by-proxy by the Government through government officials contacting companies.[21]: 49 

In 2023, Full Fact called for the removal of Conservative MP, Andrew Bridgen, from the party after the MP made claims that covid-19 vaccines were a gene therapy with various medical side effects.[22][23]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1158683 – FULL FACT, Charity Commission
  2. ↑ About Full Fact: How did you get started?, 2019
  3. ↑ Suzannah Brecknell (5 May 2016), "Full Fact's Will Moy on lobbyist "nonsense", official corrections and why we know more about golf than crime stats", Civil Service World
  4. ↑ Sam Burne James (29 September 2014), Full Fact gains charitable status five years after first application, Third Sector
  5. ↑ Andrew Gilligan (6 April 2013), "How Leveson was denied the full facts", Sunday Telegraph
  6. ↑ "Full Fact". International Fact Checking Network. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  7. ↑ "Full Fact to recruit a new chief executive". Full Fact. 27 April 2023. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  8. ↑ "Full Fact announces Chris Morris as new chief executive". Full Fact. 14 September 2023. Retrieved 25 December 2023.
  9. ↑ Lucas Graves (2016), Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, Columbia University Press, p. 41, ISBN 9780231542227
  10. 1 2 Alexios Mantzarlis (23 June 2016), Lessons from fact-checking the Brexit debate, The Poynter Institute
  11. ↑ Mădălina Ciobanu (3 July 2017), "Full Fact is developing two new tools for automated fact-checking", Journalism, Mousetrap Media
  12. ↑ About Full Fact (PDF), Government Statistical Service, 2017
  13. ↑ "Written evidence from Full Fact (TEB 46); Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee; The Elections Bill inquiry". UK Parliament.
  14. 1 2 3 A framework for information incidents:Consultation document (PDF). Full Fact.
  15. ↑ "Framework for Information Incidents". Full Fact. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  16. ↑ Sinéad Boultwood (17 May 2016), Full Fact's first Wikipedia edit-a-thon, Full Fact
  17. ↑ Roy Greenslade (9 March 2016), "Websites sort the facts from the fiction for EU referendum voters", The Guardian
  18. ↑ Robert Booth (20 May 2017), "Truth seekers: inside the UK election's fake news war room", The Guardian, p. 1
  19. ↑ Wakefield, Jane (11 January 2019). "Facebook employs UK fact-checkers". BBC News. Retrieved 13 January 2019.
  20. ↑ "YouTube is major conduit of fake news, factcheckers say". the Guardian. 12 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  21. 1 2 "Written evidence submitted by Full Fact: Draft Online Safety Bill Joint Committee".
  22. ↑ Garrett, Lee (18 January 2023). "Andrew Bridgen Covid claims debunked as Parliament ban ends". LeicestershireLive. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  23. ↑ "Andrew Bridgen MP's false claims put lives at risk". Full Fact. 11 January 2023. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
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