We are all perhaps overly familiar with the issue of weird or dubious statements and claims. Up pops one that triggers your BS alarm, and you then wonder how you can dig into it and find the truth.
The rather obvious solution is of course to google it and see what turns up. While that might not always yield links to reliable unbiased sources, it usually does. If an initial search yields no useful results, then add to your search words such as “skeptic” or “criticism” and see if that helps.
But how do you then fact check what google delivers?
What are the Top 5 Fact Checking sites?
This is perhaps a wholly subjective list, and so the idea that they are the definitive top 5 is open to challenge. I have however found them all to be incredibly useful at times.
1 – Wikipedia
It really does cover most topics in an honest, accurate and wholly unbiased manner, hence is often criticised by the purveyors of woo as highly biased. Deepak Chopra simply hates Wikipedia. Here is an article by somebody who works in one of Mr Chopra’s foundations (hence is of course totally unbiased), basically sticking the knife into Wikipedia. The real challenge to it all is that Mr Chopra’s Wikipedia page is, like every other Wikipedia page, robustly referenced, and so is a fact-based summary of him and his various pseudoscientific claims. If indeed his various quirky theories were actually published within reputable scientific journals along with some credible data then there would be appropriate coverage of it all on that basis. However, since he is instead promoting stuff that has no actual evidence, his page is garnished with an appropriate degree of criticism and skepticism that reflects that reality.
OK, that is just one example, how does it all work out in general, just how reliable is Wikipedia, how can you find out?
Rather ironically there is a Wikipedia page that covers that topic …
Wikipedia is open to anonymous and collaborative editing, so assessments of its reliability usually include examination of how quickly false or misleading information is removed. An early study conducted by IBM researchers in 2003—two years following Wikipedia’s establishment—found that “vandalism is usually repaired extremely quickly—so quickly that most users will never see its effects”[14] and concluded that Wikipedia had “surprisingly effective self-healing capabilities”.[15]
I would add one rather important note of caution, check the references cited.
2 – Snopes
Another favourite source of mine is snopes. This is a site run by folklorist David Mikkelson. I’ve been familiar with him long before the existence of the site itself, and thus I’ve known about his passion for unbiased accuracy when debunking urban legends in the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup where I also used to hang out.
These days it is not just Mr Mikkelson, he has other contributors as well.
Does he have a financial incentive for a bias?
Nope, it is wholly funded via advertising alone.
So how accurate is snopes?
Wikipedia rates it all very highly and even cites sources that verify that the most potentially contentious urban legend debunking, the political ones, are wholly free from any bias. David Mikkelson has not registered with any specific party. Having read many Snopes articles that debunk absurd political claims on all sides, I quite honestly have no idea what his actual political leanings are, and that is perhaps as it should be.
Incidentally, no matter what the source is, you should remain skeptical of everything and think critically. To keep you on your toes in that regard, here is a nice little gem from that Wikipedia page on snopes …
In an attempt to demonstrate the perils of over-reliance on the internet as authority, the Mikkelsons assembled a series of fabricated urban folklore tales that they term “The Repository of Lost Legends”.[19] The name was chosen for its acronym, T.R.O.L.L., a reference to the early 1990s definition of the word troll, meaning an Internet prank, of which David Mikkelson was a prominent practitioner.[9]
One fictional legend alleged that the children’s nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” was really a coded reference used by pirates to recruit members. This parodied a real false legend surrounding the supposed connection of “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” to the bubonic plague. Although the creators were sure that no one could believe a tale so ridiculous—and had added a link at the bottom of the page to another page explaining the hoax,[20] and a message with the ratings reading “Note: Any relationship between these ratings and reality is purely coincidental”—eventually the legend was featured as true in an urban legends board game and television show.[21]
The television show, Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed, was shown to have been using information from Snopes when one of Snopes’ invented “lost legends” appeared on the program as true; the repository thus served as an inadvertent copyright trap.[9]
3 – FactCheck.org
Factcheck.org … well gosh, I wonder what they do?
They are in fact a non-profit and also politically neutral. The project is bankrolled by the Annenberg Foundation, whose primary focus is the distribution of grants (arts, culture, education, etc…).
Imagine if you will either Hillary or Trump giving a big speech. Now imagine just how wonderfully useful it would be if somebody went through it very carefully, highlighted the various claims and called out the BS.
Here for example is their analysis of Trump’s economic speech on Aug 8th
You can read more about them here on Wikipedia.
4 – PolitiFact.com
This is a project run by Tampa Bay Times. It is a highly successful attempt to bering robust investigative journalism into the Internet age. Yes, it is perhaps similar in scope to FactCheck.org, but their approach is quite different. Here their journalists are tasked with fact checking statements made by various politicians. This then feeds into an overall “Truth-O-Meter” rating for each. Over time it all builds up into an overall assessment regarding the truthfulness of any specific politician.
From this we can discover that the most dishonest 2016 candidate is Donald Trump. 75% of Trump’s statements that they reviewed were rated “Mostly False,” “False” or “Pants on Fire”, but we all knew that, right?
The big surprise is that the most honest politician turns out to be Hillary Clinton.
Here is the Wikipedia page all about PolitiFact.
5 – RationalWiki
Finally we have No.5. Think of this as Wikipedia with a snarky point of view. I’m not kidding because that is part of their official policy. They are a non-profit foundation and have the following specific goals …
- Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement.
- Documenting the full range of crank ideas.
- Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.
- Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.
Basically what you have here is a conspiracy theory debunking website with the gloves off. I write “gloves off” because they happily mock the cranks within the rebuttals and call out the BS. They really do also cover a vast array of topics.
Here is the link to Wikipedia for this one, oh and also here is an article on RationalWiki about RationalWiki which grants you a further insight into them
In Summary
So there you go then, my top 5 and as I stated up front, all very subjective.
If you know of others that should really be in the list then I’d be really interested to learn about them, but please, don’t even think about suggesting that bastion of lunacy “Conservapedia“, and that is not a political bias on my part, they really are complete loons. Please do drop a comment with any really good ones.
I will however add one additional and perhaps rather important point. When you are faced with a claim that has no associated evidence, then you are under no obligation to debunk it. The burden of proof rests, not with you, but with whoever is making the claim. Claims asserted without evidence can simply be dismissed without evidence.
Perhaps we better fact check the idiot who wrote this left winged article .. anyone who likes trump or is on the right side is wrong ? Your article is nothing but junk .. all of the factcheckers are ridiculous and taking the freedoms of our speech is idiotic and against the american constitution.anti american!..your article tried real hard to persuade all to believe your worded crap as truth ..hahah whatever ..your as bad as the rest ..walking around with eyes closed and a lost brain.well I have a brain and will not believe one word out of that dirty in moral mouth of yours .
Feel free to FactCheck the fact checkers by citing evidence for your claim. You can do that can’t you, you can cite a reliable credible source for your position … right?
Suppose we banned all so-called fact checkers from the internet and let people learn to think for themselves. Now there’s thought. You could let people form their own ideas and do their own research and come to their own conclusions. Especially in this era of anti-journalism.
Letting people “do their own research” = folks going to google and cherry picking a few items that align with their existing beliefs.
Best to outsource fact checking to professionals whose fact checking will be peer reviewed internally before publication. Things we can all do if it is minor and trivial, but if major then I’ll not have a go at myself, but will instead turn to a licensed professional to get it done … medicine, architecture, flying a 747, and …(insert drum roll here) fact checking.
We live in a world where some declare it is raining right now and some declare it is sunny right now. Journalism 101 is going outside to see which is actually true.
I totally agree with you..I’ve fancy check thing that I know were true,and Snopes said it was fake…I wouldn’t use Snopes anymore
Snopes is as bias as they come. I wouldn’t trust anything they said, Fact check.org is just as bias,and they are both Left leaning sources…
you rightwing Americans really are thick. No wonder a Russian puppet like Trump got elected. But the 30% of America believes the earth is only ten thousand years old. Dumbarses.
Snopes is the worst of them all. Once even some of the their data is shown to be false, you cannot rely on any of their output.
The same for your list; if Snopes is on the list, you cannot trust any of the rest of the content.
Hi Carlos, Feel free to cite evidence for your claim that data on snopes is false. If you don’t, then we can discard your comment as unreliable.
You are the one in need of a spell\grammar checker
Snopes is the worst ever. they are very liberal to the left.
The observation regarding Trump is not bias, it is evidence-based reality.
well you have shown your bias “fact check Trump”.. ok… but then you add comment “but we knew that right?”… so much for your credibility.
The website snopes.com is not a reference for scientific questions, especially controversial ones. It’s mostly about urban legends and dubious news. They try to delve into science with disastrous results, because legitimate scientific debates are NOT urban legends and cannot be “debunked” in the course of a few paragraphs.
you site an opinion based site written by anyone that can connect to the internet as a fact checking site and you number one? and the best one is PolitiFact.com???? WTF, first I found more wrong on wiki than right cause democrats us it as their page of lies and facts about everyone but them. They will site everything on it is true until it goes against someone that is democrat. Then you have the total bias liberal site of PolitiFact.com run by a trash new paper that and opinion can be bought in as long as it goes with the democrat party lie.
I think you have overdosed on Fox News and Breitbart.
Before endeavouring to grapple with the fine art of fact-checking, I’d recommend you first invest in a decent grammar and spell checker. I should perhaps in once sense feel blessed that your caps-lock key was not stuck in the on position.
Two excellent political fact-checking orgs that seem fully objective are: VoteSmart http://bit.ly/2cEMrTL (which also produces VoteEasy), and MapLight http://bit.ly/2rgUCxI-Maplight “U.S. Congress Campaign Contributions and Voting Database”. As a skeptics and retired journalist/technical writer, I agree that your first 4 are excellent, reliable, objective, as far as can be so. I note the comments objecting to them from obviously uninformed conservatives that would be humorous if not so deplorable. Thanks for the RationalWiki which is new to me.
An additional resource you might want to consider is Media Bias / Fact Checker, they try to show both how reliable media sources are, they basically build up a repository of stories and use the accuracy of these to assess the general accuracy of reporting; secondly they try to show the general bias of the site so that readers can get an idea on how stories are likely to be portrayed. They also run a sister site, Search News which uses this information to search news stories, and present generally highly accurate sites. You can choose if you want a left / right / unbiased selection of sources
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
https://factualsearch.news/
Mediabiasfactcheck is a right wing garbage site. Many right wing media companies not even rated including the most infamous right wing extension of the republican party – FoxNews. They took the world famous media company chart and shifted everything to the left. They actually had the gall to call NPR and the BBC a left leaning site. You would have to be one of Trump’s family to see this as anything more than a joke.
I am also curious about mediabiasfactcheck they seem to be pretty legit in methodology and have reasonable results.
What do you think about mediabiasfactcheck.com?
I specifically asked not for a retort on this, but here, try the links wherein – they are absolutely true:
http://www.truthwiki.org/snopes-snopes-com/
// I specifically asked not for a retort on this //
Actually no you did not.
Regarding your “retort”, it is laughably silly. The article you link to on “truthWiki” starts off with a link to a UK Tabloid, the Daily Mail, that simply does a hatchet job and is a thinly veiled attack against the folks who operate Snopes. The Daily Mail is so bad that the official policy of english UK editors of Wikipedia is to never ever cite anything published in the Daily Mail. Anybody citing from the Daily Mail as a source for anything immediately blows their credibility.
But none of that matters because TruthWiki actually has no credibility to blow anyway.
As for “truth wiki” itself …. seriously, do you honestly have no idea who Mike Adams is, and are you completely and utterly oblivious to how much of a complete crank he actually is?
From here … http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/TruthWiki …
Snopes is thoroughly unreliable, and I assumed most people knew that by now. Over the years many legitimate news stories were run about the background of this couple and how their process. One can often tell this type of bias without digging very much – a broad sampling of articles makes it quite apparent that a pair with a lot of time on their hands wanted exert their own opinions in a disguised, “quotable” manner.
(And quit dumbly asking for proof – it doesn’t take two minutes of research to find this)
Politifact, too is infamous enough to have their own counter-websites: http://www.politifactbias.com
Could dig deeper into this easily, but it’s already apparent your posting is “Fake News”.
Regarding Snopes, are you able to cite one article you feel is factually incorrect and provide evidence that verifies it to be factually incorrect?
Regarding politifact vs politifactbias. One is run by the Tampa Bay Times and utilises strict journalistic standards, original sources to verify the claims, and interviews impartial experts. The other is Bryan White’s personal blog where within his latest posting (30th Mar) he attempts to defend the claim that the ACA is in a death spiral … er no, seriously not true.
These are liberal propaganda! Snopes has been caught in many lies.
Your rebuttal carries strength if you cite an actual example Teresa, are you able to do that?
You lost credibility immediately with this article…. Snopes and a few others on your list are propoganda outlets, which have had several debunked posts and cannot be quotes by any means, any more than the National Enquirer. Do your fact checking before you write this trash.
Hi Carl, do you have any evidence for your claim that any of these are “propoganda outlets”?
The claim that various fact checkers are “propoganda” is itself simply propaganda
Wikipedia? Seriously? Yuck…you had me at wikipedia…
Got any evidence that wikipedia is not a credible reliable source?
Best source of reliability of and criticism of Wikipedia is …. Wikipedia itself.
This article contains references near complete list of peer review articles on reliability of (mostly) English language Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
IF you indulged deeper, you would have found that SNOPES was found to LIE about Clinton’s fact chevkjs! That was reported on TV. Snopes SAID they debunked all the things said by Clinton in the 2nd debate! Snopes was fact checked as were 2 other sights FOR Clinton! So…do you know of any HONEST NON biased fact checkers??? It would be nice to have 1.
Beyond writing, “This was reported on TV“, can you cite any evidence that verifies that snopes lies?
Can you identify exactly where snopes claimed to have debunked all the things said by Clinton in the 2nd debate?
The question, “do you know of any HONEST NON biased fact checkers” implies that you feel the fact-checkers I list are dishonest, do you have any evidence that supports that?
AB 1461 was enough for me Dave.
Factcheck.org is the best of them in my opinion.
If you’re a leftist.
Also Der Speigel…
If you’re a German leftist.