Repustar: For News Activists

Should I believe this

Did that really happen?

Repustar enables you to support your conversations online with facts from authoritative sources. The Repustar Review Network looks into your concerns and responds with clear answers supported by credible data and documents.

Download Repustar and get started.

A new way to ground conversations in facts

Repustar invites everyone to participate in online claim verification.

Through Repustar, people can challenge questionable assertions or back up claims with evidence.

Anyone is welcome to contribute to Repustar. Reviewers follow transparent rules. Work produced on the platform is accessible to all.

claim

(v) state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.

(n) an assertion of the truth of something, typically one that is disputed or in doubt.

verification

(n) the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something.

From the Oxford Dictionary

Meet @FactSparrow

From any Twitter thread, if you have doubts about something being claimed, or just want to make sure the conversation is grounded in reality, just ask our friendly bot:

@FactSparrow is this true?

Since @FactSparrow is still young, you can also give her more specific guidance on the claim you are curious about - such as

@FactSparrow does Google really have humans intervene in search results?

@FactSparrow do state governments really control redistricting?

If you do this, make sure the question you are asking is connected to the conversation thread you are part of on Twitter. The results she brings back will be from Repustar’s growing stockpile of facts. If @FactSparrow doesn’t find something useful for you, ask FactSparrow to flag the claim. The Repustar Review Network will check it out.

@FactSparrow Is there evidence that wearing a mask leads to dental issues?
— Robyn (@RepustarRobyn) December 2, 2020

Welcome to Repustar’s fact delivery service. Does this fact-check help you? (Please answer “Yes” or “No”.) https://t.co/ESsK4wXrmI
— Fact Sparrow (@FactSparrow) December 2, 2020

An introduction: Truth decay: A Short Video and a deep dive: Truth Decay: the whole document

Handbooks: The Debunking Handbook and The Conspiracy Theory Handbook

Misinformation history: The (almost) complete history of fake news

Fact-checking history: The rise and fall of facts

Harm done: The new public health pandemic risk

Value lost: Loss of trust in business and commerce

What happens next: The future of truth and misinformation online

Technology initiatives:

Trust Initiatives:

The Trust Project develops journalism transparency standards
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) creates the Journalism Trust Initiative
Credweb and drafting tech standards for the internet
NewsGuard nutrition labeling

Test yourself:

Who we are

Chandran Sankaran, Founder and CEO (read Chandran's thoughts on the importance of scaling fact-checking here)

John Marcom, Founding Editorial Director

The Repustar team is based in the United States and India and includes: Robyn Sundlee, Sandeep Verma, Sangram Das, Willow Higgins, Anna Lenaker, Madhu Reddy, Dhiren Raghu, Abhilash Goswami, Alok Mohanty, Karan Chotaliya, Vetrikumaran A, Caroline Francis, Shreshta Jaisingh, Kiran Nambiar and Kinnari Thakker.

More about the value of factual information

Who we are