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外刊读写营第8期 公众号/B站：三言两语杂货社 Unit 1
The next chapter for fact-checking: information integrity
Fact-checking needs to evolve to meet new challenges
Alarm about disinformation and misinformation surged around the world after
2016. The moment seemed dramatic. Countries experienced unanticipated election
outcomes after false news reports surged on social media.
The events inspired researchers Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan to coin a
new term for what was happening – “information disorder.” It implies a
dysfunctionality in the information system, caused by the spread of false
information, in the way that a medical disorder disrupts our individual health.
Fact-checking groups existed long before the events of 2016, but soon fighting dis-
and misinformation became a rallying cry for fact-checkers and civil society groups
alarmed by what they were seeing: false messages that spread virally online, going
hand in hand with political rhetoric that promoted false claims through mainstream
media and in-person events.
Fact-checking, they believed, would help treat this new disorder. If only it were so
simple.
In fact, media leaders in Africa realized early on that in many parts of the world,
the problem of information disorder is not limited to the spread of false claims.
False information was one thing, but in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South
— and even in the Global North during natural disasters, security incidents and
the COVID-19 health crisis — it was combined with a lack of access to accurate
information. That was paired with the human tendency toward motivated reasoning
and a lack of critical thinking.
Simply fighting against “dis- and misinformation” was clearly not enough.
Soon enough, the framing of “fighting information disorder” was dismissed by外刊读写营第8期 公众号/B站：三言两语杂货社 Unit 1
opponents as a flawed endeavour; they argued for an information marketplace
where individuals would fend for themselves. Authoritarian governments, too,
used “information disorder” as an inverse of their own quests for “information
order,” which meant officially defined “truth” and state-created agencies that
determined what information was acceptable. In other words, “information
disorder” was getting co-opted.
To avoid these risks, what’s needed now is a framing that captures the full scope
of fact-checkers’ work — and shows what they’re fighting for; not just what they’re
against—a framing that would be more resilient in the face of attacks.
Enter the recent concept of “information integrity”. The term is now being promoted
by some fact-checkers and international organizations, like the UNDP and the
G20.
Achieving information integrity certainly requires fact-checking. But the concept
also points clearly to other indispensable preconditions, which many fact-checking
organizations also address. Notably:
• Promoting accurate and independent journalism
• Opening up state (and, as appropriate, private sector) information and data
archives
• Reinforcing people’s abilities to resist junk content, and strengthening their
agency as critical consumers and producers of content
Information integrity not only describes a positive goal, but the formulation can
also help counter the attacks that fact-checkers are part of a so-called “censorship
industrial complex.” Information integrity underlines the idea that fact-checking is
actually an essential part of exercising free speech.
The new concept can move the debate away from arguments about the motives of
purveyors of falsehoods and the challenge of proving intent to mislead. This is
especially relevant when addressing content produced by generative artificial外刊读写营第8期 公众号/B站：三言两语杂货社 Unit 1
intelligence, which is frequently incorrect. In many cases, the results can be
downright wrong but lack deliberate intent.
The umbrella model of information integrity is also in action right now. Fact-
checking organizations have for years engaged in a range of activities beyond
correcting myths and falsehoods. Many have long worked towards a plurality of
information sources known for accuracy, as well as engaging in media and
information literacy initiatives so that members of the public know to pause before
they click.
In Europe, the Spanish fact-checking organization Maldita, for example, holds
regular meetings with political groups in parliament to discuss the challenge of
dis- and misinformation. (As a result, the parliamentary leader of one party recently
reported that they now require staff to provide footnotes for sources of any claims
they make.) Africa Check provides a service, known as Info Finder, that serves as
an information helpdesk for under-resourced media, helping journalists find
accurate information on important topics in half a dozen countries.
There’s room for even more work to be done here, and fact-checking operations
can embrace the various roles they can play within a framework that promotes
information integrity. In addition to debunking and pre-bunking, they can call out
actual censorship and transparency deficits, especially when the public should
have access to information it’s not getting. Fact-checkers can champion the
availability and prominence of accurate journalism. And they can help the general
public develop their own skills to navigate the ever-more complex landscape.
“Countering information disorder” has served fact-checkers well for almost a
decade. Updating it in favor of “fighting for information integrity” can help to
position practitioners to embrace what’s coming up next.
