Financial constraints, threats of harassment and shifting audience habits were among the top concerns for fact-checkers in 2024, the International Fact Checking Network’s State of the Fact-checkers Report found.

Ahead of International Fact-Checking Day, which is April 2, the network’s seventh annual report presented findings from a survey completed by fact-checkers around the world, from 141 organizations in 67 countries.

The International Fact-Checking Network presented its findings in a March 31 Zoom call with members from its more than 100 signatories.

Enock Nyariki, the network’s communications manager, highlighted the report’s key takeaways, while director Angie Drobnic Holan spoke with Ana Brakus, executive director of Faktograf, Croatia’s first and only fact-checking outlet, and Olivia Sohr, director of impact and new initiatives at Chequeado, Latin America’s first fact-checking organization.

Holan, Brakus and Sohr discussed the effects of Meta’s decision to end its U.S. fact-checking program, the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence technology and the importance of collaboration among fact-checkers.

Here are some highlights:

Fact-checking organizations are facing financial uncertainty.

Close to 90% of fact-checkers cited financial sustainability as the top challenge for their organizations.

Though the report focused on 2024, fact-checkers responded to the survey from Jan. 22 to Feb. 7, after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the end of the company’s fact-checking initiative in the U.S. in a Jan. 7 video.

When or whether the program will end internationally is unclear, creating financial uncertainty for fact-checkers around the world. About 60% of survey respondents said they participated in the Meta fact-checking program. And more than half said a third of their revenue came from the program.

Beyond the concerns about funding from tech companies, Sohr said, fact-checkers in Latin America have also seen the end of many journalism grants, “making the situation much more complicated than it was a year ago.”

Among the funds frozen by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency are grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development for news organizations around the world.

Brakus had a message for the philanthropic community, specifically for donors who made a funding strategy before President Donald Trump’s election that “didn’t take into account the complete dismantlement of financial support for media organizations globally.”

“If your strategy did not include the world falling apart, you need to do it again,” Brakus said. But she added that, despite the financial losses, the precarious situation “is also creating a space for new faces, new people, new organizations and new ways of thinking to come in.”

Fact-checkers prioritize debunking political misinformation as audiences favor short videos

Seventy-two countries held elections in 2024, which was described as “the biggest election year in human history” by the United Nations. Fact-checkers said most of their work revolved around debunking misinformation about elections, social issues and public health.

Holan highlighted a shift in the misinformation landscape.

“We’re losing the distinction between political content and viral content,” she said. “I used to see those as very different kinds of misinformation phenomena, but now they’re much more similar.”

Nearly 60% of fact-checkers said they fact-checked both internet-based and political misinformation in roughly equal parts.

Politicians often repeat viral claims from social media while internet misinformers “pick up political messaging,” Holan said.

As for how audiences engage with fact-checkers’ work, short-form videos were the most effective format for reaching new audiences, according to 74% of fact-checkers. In addition to videos, survey respondents also found success with infographics and short fact-checks.

“Successful engagement requires changing very quickly to what the audience needs,” Nyariki said. “Giving them fast visuals and being mobile first.”

Artificial intelligence creates new opportunities but raises ethical concerns.

As artificial intelligence models continue to grow, fact-checking organizations are grappling with how to implement the technology’s capacities. About half of the survey respondents said their organizations use AI for preliminary research. But ethical concerns, high costs and lack of technical expertise are among fact-checkers’ main challenges when it comes to integrating AI into their newsrooms.

Chequeado, Sohr’s organization, is among the fact-checking groups pioneering the use of AI in the field. The group has used AI to “accelerate production times” by turning written articles into video scripts, transcribing audio and identifying checkable statements.

“Always with a lot of human supervision,” Sohr said.

Citing International Center for Journalists Knight fellow Nikita Roy’s keynote address at the International Fact-Checking Network’s 2024 GlobalFact 11 conference, Holan said, “AI is a language tool.” It’s best at synthesizing and paraphrasing information, “but it’s not a great research tool, or at least it’s not great at returning reliable results.”

Brakus advised fact-checkers to create codes of ethics for their organizations’ AI use. She also urged groups to think of AI beyond its technological capacities. She said people should account for the “human toll, the effects it has on our climate, and how quickly we can become dependent on this kind of rapid evolution of AI everywhere in our lives.”

Harassment remains a constant threat for fact-checkers worldwide.

Nearly 80% of fact-checkers said they faced threats or online abuse in 2024. Respondents cited threats to both individuals and their organizations as a whole.

Brakus said even though the report focused on 2024, threats and harassment are bound to increase in 2025.

“Two men that lead the biggest social media platforms out there, basically, painting the target on our back,” Brakus said about Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk. She said after Zuckerberg’s Jan. 7 video, threats and harassment “started flooding in our inboxes.”

Holan and Sohr said harassment is not going away, and that fact-checkers must find ways to mitigate it. They said having strong community and peer support through collaboration across organizations helps. Nearly 80% of survey respondents said they collaborated with other fact-checkers.

As resources become more scarce, Sohr said she hopes “we don’t start competing between each other, and we do keep the collaboration spirit that we’ve always had as fact-checkers. It’s the only way to help us move forward in a better way.”

Brakus said that despite the clear challenges facing fact-checkers today, she holds hope that “we can survive this.” She said there are several organizations around the world that have faced similar threats. And that fact-checkers should look to their colleagues around the world who have reported during wars and “who have done amazing and creative work in terrible circumstances, and we see that they could do it.”