Today, the International Fact-Checking Network is honoring the one-year anniversary of the CoronaVirusFacts Alliance – the global collaborative project launched by 99 fact-checking organizations from more than 70 countries. The alliance is the largest fact-checking collaboration in history, and its database currently holds more than 10,300 fact-checks about the pandemic.
In 12 months, 260,000 unique visitors viewed the Alliance’s landing page on the Poynter Institute website a total of 345,000 times. That’s nearly 1,000 pageviews a day.
To increase the ease of public access to the database, the IFCN developed four WhatsApp Chatbots in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Hindi. They are all active and ready as the alliance enters its second year.
The CoronaVirusFacts Alliance also received support from Facebook and WhatsApp, which allowed the IFCN to support 21 fact-checking projects with over $800,000 in grant funding. Some projects helped member organizations hire new staff, while others developed new formats and methods of disseminating their fact-checks.
The alliance revealed the power and the possibility of collaboration between fact-checking organizations from across the globe. According to the guidelines put in place one year ago, member organizations keep each other informed about false narratives about the virus circulating in their countries, which serves as an early warning system for fact-checkers across the globe.
All fact checks in the alliance database can be translated and republished by alliance members for free provided they credit the original organization and keep the original byline.
In November, the Paris Peace Forum recognized the alliance’s vital work by selecting it as one of 10 projects to gain networking and support from its Scale-Up Committee. It is currently receiving organizational and networking support that will guarantee the project’s growth in its second year.
