How we check the facts in our Cases

Every factual statement in a Case is backed by at least one source. Next to each statement you will find a link to that source. We opened every source ourselves and checked that it really says what we report. Before we publish, we open all sources again.

We give every claim one of four labels:

Confirmed: reliable sources show that it is true. Often this is the people involved saying so themselves, or several independent outlets reporting the same thing.

Unconfirmed: there is some evidence for it, but it has not been verified yet. We always say what that evidence is and what is still missing.

No evidence found: someone has made the claim, but we found nothing that supports it. Nobody has disproved it either. We say where the claim came from.

False: the claim has been disproved. We explain what the evidence shows instead.

If the starting point of a story is wrong, for example if something that went viral never happened, the Case says so plainly at the top and explains where the claim came from.

Our text is our own. We explain things in plain language and link to the original sources instead of copying them.