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PolitiFact
The easiest verdict to read at a glance. Every check ends on the Truth-O-Meter, six steps from True down to Pants on Fire, and three editors vote on each rating, with two votes deciding it. PolitiFact began in 2007 as an election-year project, won a Pulitzer Prize for its 2008 campaign coverage and is owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute. Corrected checks carry a "Corrections and updates" tag, which makes changes easy to find.
It draws bias complaints from both left and right. One analysis that found Republicans receiving most of its False and Pants on Fire ratings also noted that PolitiFact did not explain how it chose which statements to check, and that choice is the thing to keep in mind when comparing its tallies.
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FactCheck.org
The choice when you want the reasoning rather than a score. FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, writes long explanations of what a politician or ad got wrong instead of stamping a rating on it, which suits readers who want to follow the evidence themselves. Its SciCheck strand covers science claims, including vaccines and COVID-19.
Its funding page is among the most open in the field. It says it has never taken money from unions, names donors who give $5,000 or more in a year, and lists the exceptions to its no-corporate-money rule, including Meta's funding for debunking viral posts from 2017 to 2025.
More about FactCheck.org3
Snopes
The first place to look for the forwarded email, the too-good photo or the rumor your aunt shared. Snopes started in 1994 as David and Barbara Mikkelson's urban legends reference site, and that habit of tracing a story to its origin still sets it apart from sites built around politicians' statements. It will mark a claim undetermined when the evidence runs out, and a "Labeled Satire" rating flags jokes that escaped their context.
Its record has a real blemish. In 2021 BuzzFeed News found co-founder David Mikkelson had plagiarized news sources in 54 articles; Snopes retracted 60 of his pieces and removed him from editorial duties. Its satire ratings also led to a long public dispute with The Babylon Bee.
More about Snopes4
Lead Stories
Built for speed on whatever is going viral right now. Lead Stories, launched in 2015, uses its own trend-spotting software, Trendolizer, to hunt for false stories, images and videos as they start trending, with the aim of checking them quickly. It is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network's code and publishes editions in several languages, from Spanish to Ukrainian.
Be clear about the money. It says it is self-funded with no outside investors, but its income has included fees from Meta's and ByteDance's fact-checking contracts. Meta's ran from February 2019 to April 2025, and its co-founder said losing it would mean less revenue and fewer staff.
More about Lead Stories5
Associated Press
AP Fact Check, the Associated Press's fact-checking desk
Useful because it reaches you through coverage you already read. AP Fact Check comes from the same wire service that supplies local newspapers and broadcasters, so its checks of speeches, campaign claims and viral posts often turn up inside everyday news reports rather than on a separate fact-checking site.
Read the whole piece rather than the headline: AP's checks are written as news stories that explain what a claim gets wrong. Its fact-checking deal with Meta ended in January 2024, a year before Meta wound down its US program, so its US work has not depended on that money since.
More about Associated Press6
Reuters
Reuters Fact Check, the news agency's fact-checking unit
A sober check on claims that cross borders. Reuters had long worked on verifying images and video, but its dedicated fact-check unit launched in February 2020 as a partner in Facebook's US program, days after passing International Fact-Checking Network certification. Each piece sets out the claim and Reuters' verdict on it, which makes it easy to share with someone who distrusts partisan sites.
Keep its origins in mind: the unit grew up checking English and Spanish posts on Facebook and Instagram, and Meta closed that US program in 2025.
More about Reuters7
Agence France-Presse
AFP Fact Check, Agence France-Presse's fact-checking service
The widest reach on this list. The French news agency began fact-checking in 2017 and by 2024 had more than 150 fact-checkers working in 26 languages, which makes it the place to look when a rumor started in Asia, Africa or Latin America and has only just reached English-language feeds.
AFP was an important paid partner in Facebook's fact-checking program, and after Meta ended the US program, AFP set out a plan in 2025 to save 12 to 14 million euros by the end of 2026 as its revenue fell short of forecast, so it is worth noticing which language editions stay busy.
More about Agence France-Presse8
Science Feedback
The specialist for health, climate and science claims. Instead of a newsroom generalist, Science Feedback has editors who are scientists or science journalists, and it recruits outside researchers with expertise in the field to score an article's credibility on accuracy, logic and precision. Its sister sites, Health Feedback and Climate Feedback, are the ones to check for viral vaccine or climate stories. It is a not-for-profit registered in France.
Its scientific judgments have been contested in court. Journalist John Stossel sued Meta and Science Feedback over labels on his videos about wildfires and climate change, and in 2022 a federal judge dismissed the defamation suit.
More about Science Feedback9
Full Fact
The model for a fact-checker that chases the correction, not just the verdict. Full Fact, a British charity founded in 2009 and launched the following year by a cross-party group of trustees, follows up its checks by asking public figures and institutions to correct or retract what they said, and names those who fail to respond. That makes it the place to see whether a claim was actually withdrawn.
It also builds automated monitoring tools, which it says have been used in more than forty countries. Its checks are written for the British public debate, so it suits readers following UK politics and claims rather than US ones.
More about Full Fact10
Africa Check
The first stop for claims about African countries. Africa Check was set up in 2012 at the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and now has offices in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Dakar and London, publishing in English and French. It is useful beyond the continent too, whenever a statistic about an African country turns up in an American or European argument.
It is a non-profit trust in South Africa and a community interest company in Britain. Its funders have included the AFP Foundation and the university, which is worth knowing when you weigh its independence from the big news agencies.
More about Africa Check11
Chequeado
The longest-running Spanish-language fact-checker in Latin America, and by its own account the region's first. Chequeado has checked Argentine public debate since 2010, and it publishes the eight-step method every check goes through before it gets a rating, so you can see how a verdict was reached. It is the main project of a non-partisan, non-profit foundation.
Its funding rules are explicit: it takes no money from Argentine authorities at any level, to protect its editorial line, and mixes individual donors, companies, its own activities and international cooperation. That last source is large, about half its income in its July 2023 to June 2024 financial year, so readers weighing foreign funding should check the breakdown it publishes.
More about Chequeado12
Maldita.es
The best example of a fact-checker built around its readers. Maldita.es, founded in Spain in 2014 by journalists Clara Jiménez Cruz and Julio Montes, gathers suspected hoaxes from the public through a WhatsApp tipline, and in 2020 it added a chatbot that answers people directly in the app where the rumors spread. Before that, it was running around 70 WhatsApp distribution groups by hand.
For American readers the lesson is the method more than the coverage, which is Spanish-language and focused on Spain. It is a useful check, though, when Spanish-language rumors circulate in the US.
More about Maldita.es13
Rappler
Rappler's fact-check desk, Philippines
A fact-checker that shows what the work can cost. Rappler, the Philippine news site co-founded by Maria Ressa, joined the International Fact-Checking Network in October 2017 and became one of Facebook's two Philippine fact-checking partners in 2018. The government of the day protested that partnership, and in 2018 the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked Rappler's license to operate as a media outlet, an order the Court of Appeals reversed in 2024.
Ressa shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for safeguarding freedom of expression. Read its checks for claims about the Philippines and for how disinformation campaigns are run on social media.
More about Rappler14
Alt News
An Indian entry, and a case study in checking a fact-checker's credentials. Alt News was launched in February 2017 by Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair and is run as a non-profit. It was a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network until April 2020, so it no longer carries that standard, which is exactly the kind of detail worth looking up before relying on any site.
Supporters and opponents read its record very differently. Sinha has said most of the fake news sources he tracks support right-wing views, and in 2022 Delhi Police arrested Zubair over a 2018 satirical tweet, an arrest critics saw as retaliation for his reporting.
More about Alt News15
BOOM
The for-profit counterpart to Alt News, and the Indian checker that holds the international certification. BOOM took its fact-checking form in November 2016, is certified by the International Fact-Checking Network and in 2018 became the first Indian newsroom to join Facebook's fact-checking program. It checks viral videos, deepfakes and political claims in English, Hindi and Bengali, with teams covering Bangladesh and Myanmar too.
Its money is spelled out. It is run by a for-profit company and names Meta as the only organization supplying more than 5% of its revenue in the 2025-26 financial year, which is worth weighing when it checks posts on Meta's own platforms.
More about BOOM16
Correctiv
The German reference, from a nonprofit investigative newsroom rather than a dedicated fact-check shop. Correctiv began in 2014 in Essen, is a member of the International Fact-Checking Network, and its fact checks sit alongside investigations such as its January 2024 report on a Potsdam meeting of far-right figures and AfD and CDU members, which set off mass protests against the AfD.
Weigh its funding and its legal record. Its money comes largely from foundations and corporations, including Open Society Foundations and Google Germany, plus some government program funding, and in March 2026 a Berlin court sided with an AfD politician and barred Correctiv from certain statements about the Potsdam meeting.
More about Correctiv
