22-531: Alt News is an Indian non-profit fact checking website founded and run by former software engineer Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair . It was launched on 9 February 2017 to combat fake news . Alt News was a signatory partner of the International Fact-Checking Network until April 2020. Alt News was founded in Ahmedabad by Pratik Sinha, a former software engineer and son of Mukul Sinha , who
44-478: A certification to publishers who pass the audit. The certification lasts for one year, and fact-checkers must be re-examined annually to retain their certifications. Facebook has used the IFCN's certification to vet publishers for fact-checking contracts. Membership has also been used to identify the reliability of a fact-checking organization. DW called it the most prominent fact-checking consortium. The IFCN and
66-632: A 1983 Indian comedy film Kissi Se Na Kehna by Hrishikesh Mukherjee . The tweet was complained to be disregarding of Hindu sentiments by an anonymous Twitter user. Journalist bodies, human rights organizations, and the political opposition perceived the arrest as a revenge against his role in the 2022 BJP Muhammad remarks controversy and Alt News' work of fighting disinformation in the society, while noting of diminishing press freedom in Modi's India. Alt News works by monitoring misinformation, primarily identifying that are sufficiently viral . They use CrowdTangle,
88-576: A Facebook tool that publishers use to track how content spreads across the internet, for monitoring Facebook pages that have put out misinformation at some point in the past and are on either side of the ideological spectrum. They use TweetDeck , a Twitter management tool to similarly monitor content on Twitter posted by people who have been known to tweet misinformation frequently. They also monitor multiple WhatsApp groups that they have been able to infiltrate and also receive content from users who alert them on social media and WhatsApp . Alt News identified
110-469: A fact-checking site is in a network like the International Fact-Checking Network can help to establish the reliability of a fact-checking organization. International Fact-Checking Network launched in 2015 by the Poynter Institute set a code of ethics for fact-checking organizations. The IFCN reviews fact-checkers for compliance with its code, and issues a certification to publishers who pass
132-748: A small journalism school called the Modern Media Institute . In 1977, Nelson Poynter willed ownership of the Times Publishing Company to the Institute so that after his death the school would become the owner of the St. Petersburg Times . The name of the school was changed to the "Poynter Institute" in 1984. Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist ) is a board member of the Poynter Foundation and donated $ 1 million to it in 2015. In 2018,
154-528: A software engineer in 2016 and founded Alt News the next year. Sinha has allegedaly received threats to his life from fugitive underworld don Ravi Pujari , demanding that he stop producing content. In July 2022, co-founder Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police for allegedly "hurting religious sentiments". The charges under IPC section 295A and section 67 of the IT Act were pressed for a satirical tweet he made in 2018, in which he shared an unedited screenshot from
176-688: Is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida , United States. The school is the owner of the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Network. It also operates PolitiFact . The school began on May 29, 1975, when Nelson Poynter , the owner and chairman of the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times ) and Times Publishing Company , announced that he planned to start
198-613: The American Press Institute jointly publish Factually , a newsletter on fact-checking and journalism ethics. The IFCN also organizes Global Fact, a yearly conference on fact checking. News University (NewsU) is a project of the Poynter Institute that offers journalism training through methods including e-learning courses, webinars, and learning games. NewsU is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation . In 2023,
220-748: The News Leaders Association transferred stewardship of the NLA Awards to the Poynter Institute, who will administer the contest from 2024 onward, and the awards were renamed to The Poynter Journalism Prizes. That same year, Poynter announced the creation of a new prize in honor of Roy Peter Clark called The Roy Peter Clark Award for Excellence in Short Writing. Since 2015, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism has been awarded by
242-793: The Newseum and Techdirt 's free speech initiative." On February 12, 2018, the Tampa Bay Times , the for-profit branch of the nonprofit Poynter institute spun off the Pulitzer Prize –winning PolitiFact website to form an independent division within Poynter. Since 2019, The Washington Post has been partnering with the Poynter Institute to increase diversity in media, with the goal to expand Poynter's annual Leadership Academy for Diversity in Digital Media training journalists to become founders, top-level executives and innovators. Other sponsors are CNN ,
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#1732870042985264-563: The Paycheck Protection Program during the COVID-19 pandemic . President Neil Brown noted that this was not the first time the institute received government funding, noting past training contracts with Voice of America . In 2015, the institute launched the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which sets a code of ethics for fact-checking organizations. The IFCN reviews fact-checkers for compliance with its code, and issues
286-566: The Poynter Institute began a cooperation with the content recommendation network Revcontent, to stop misinformation and fake news in articles supplying Revcontent with fact-checking provided by their International Fact-Checking Network. January 11, 2018, the Charles Koch Foundation 's Director of Free Expression, Sarah Ruger, stated in an American Society of News Editors news release that "The foundation supports many grantees committed to press freedom, including The Poynter Institute,
308-668: The Scripps Howard Foundations, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation and TEGNA Foundation. Poynter published a list of over 515 news websites that it labeled "unreliable" in 2019. The author of the piece used various fake news databases (including those curated by the Annenberg Public Policy Center , Merrimack College , PolitiFact , and Snopes ) to compile
330-449: The audit. The certification lasts for one year, and fact-checkers must be re-examined annually to retain their certifications. IFCN lists 170 organizations as members as of July 2024. Facebook and Instagram have used the IFCN's certification to vet publishers for fact-checking contracts. The Reporters' Lab at Duke University maintains a database of fact-checking organizations that is managed by Mark Stencel and Bill Adair. As of 2024,
352-868: The database has 439 non-partisan organizations around the world. The Lab's inclusion criteria are based on whether the organization: The Duke Reporter's lab found the number of reputable fact-checking sites around the world plateauing in 2024 around 440. Fact-checking websites in China often avoid commenting on political, economic, and other current affairs. Several Chinese fact-checking websites have been criticized for lack of transparency with regard to their methodology and sources, and for following Chinese propaganda . Operators of some fact-checking websites in China admit to self-censorship . International Fact-Checking Network verified signatories: Others: IFCN verified signatories: Others: International Fact Checking Network The Poynter Institute for Media Studies
374-713: The individuals running the Hindu right-wing website DainikBharat.org. He also showed that a video allegedly depicting a Marwari girl married to a Muslim man being burnt to death for not wearing a burqah was Guatemalan in origin. According to the BBC , a report by Alt News in June 2017 demonstrating that the Indian Home Ministry had used a picture of the Spanish–Moroccan border to claim it had installed floodlights on India's borders led to
396-464: The list and called on advertisers to " blacklist " the included sites. The list included conservative news websites such as the Washington Examiner , The Washington Free Beacon , and The Daily Signal as well as conspiracy outfits including InfoWars . After backlash from both readers of and contributors to some of the included publications, Poynter retracted the list, citing "weaknesses in
418-499: The list with SPLC's own work on hate groups . In 2020, after receiving funding from Facebook , the Poynter Institute expanded the MediaWise program with a national media literacy program called MediaWise Voter project (#MVP). Its goal was to reach 2 million American first-time voter college students, helping them to be better prepared and informed for the 2020 elections . The Poynter Institute received $ 737,400 in federal loans from
440-476: The methodology". Poynter issued a statement, saying: "[w]e regret that we failed to ensure that the data was rigorous before publication, and apologize for the confusion and agitation caused by its publication." Reason pointed out that the author was a freelancer hired by the Institute who typically works for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Reason drew parallels between the accuracy of
462-795: The ministry facing online mockery. Sinha has compiled a list of more than 40 of what he describes as fake news sources, most of which he says support right wing views. The Alt News team wrote a book titled India Misinformed: The True Story published by HarperCollins which was released in March 2019. The book was "pre-endorsed" by Arundhati Roy . In 2017, Sinha was invited to the Google NewsLab Asia-Pacific Summit to discuss potential solutions to fake news . List of fact-checking websites This list of fact-checking websites includes websites that provide fact-checking services about both political and non-political subjects. Whether
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#1732870042985484-512: Was a lawyer and the founder-president of Jan Sangharsh Manch . Pratik Sinha became interested in exposing fake news when he began working with his activist parents in India. He had followed the rise of fake news as early as 2013 but was moved to start the website after realizing the impact of social media in 2016, when four Dalit boys were flogged for skinning a dead cow in Una, Gujarat . He quit freelancing as
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