Five public commitments you can use to judge any fact-checking site, including ours.
By FactInfoLive · Published 2026-11-11 · Updated 2026-11-11
Why this matters
Anyone can put "fact check" on a web page. A useful test is whether the organisation follows public standards that others can inspect. The best-known standard is the Code of Principles of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), run at the Poynter Institute.
The five commitments
The code consists of five commitments that fact-checking organisations must follow to become verified signatories:
1. Nonpartisanship and fairness: the same standard is applied to every claim, whoever made it.
2. Transparency of sources: sources are shown so readers can check the evidence themselves.
3. Transparency of funding and organisation: who pays for the work and who runs it is public.
4. Transparency of methodology: how claims are chosen, researched and rated is explained.
5. Open and honest corrections: mistakes are corrected publicly under a clear policy.
Poynter describes three of these as being about transparency (funding, methodology and sources), one about nonpartisanship and fairness, and one about honest corrections.
How to check an organisation
- Look for the IFCN badge, then confirm the organisation is on the official list of verified signatories on the Code of Principles website. A badge alone is not proof, because the IFCN states that any organisation holding the badge that is not on its list is not a signatory.
- Read the "About" and "Methodology" pages. Do they explain how claims are rated?
- Check that articles link to their evidence.
- Find the corrections policy and look for real corrections.
- See who funds the organisation.
Use fact checks without blind trust
Google's Fact Check Explorer collects fact checks from many publishers, and you can search it for a claim. Its results come from the fact-checkers, so you should still judge each source. For claims that affect health, money or elections, compare more than one fact-check.
Where FactInfoLive stands
FactInfoLive is a new independent site and is not an IFCN signatory. We link the sources used in our articles so you can verify them yourself, and we label AI-assisted articles. If you find a mistake, tell us and we will correct it.
Sources
IFCN Code of Principles, "The commitments": https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/the-commitments
Poynter, on the updated Code of Principles: https://poynter.org/?p=706408
Google blog, "4 ways to use Search to check facts, images and sources online": https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/google-search-fact-checking-resources/
Android Police, guide to Google Fact Check Explorer: https://www.androidpolice.com/google-fact-check-explorer-guide/