OSLO — Members of fact-checking organizations from around the globe met last week for their first in-person conference in three years, confronting a world awash in baseless claims promoted by politicians and even governments and increasingly embraced by receptive audiences.
The torrent of false information, such as the election-fraud claims that led to the assault on the U.S. Capitol, Russian disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine and pseudoscientific assertions about the coronavirus pandemic, has emerged despite the astonishing growth of the fact-checking movement. In 2021, there were 391 active fact-checking projects, according to an annual census by the Duke Reporters’ Lab, up from 168 in 2016.
With more than 500 participants from 69 countries, the gathering was twice the size of the last in-person Global Fact summit in Cape Town three years ago. In 2014, some three dozen fact-checkers met for the first time in London at a small college classroom, hoping to spark greater global cooperation. That meeting led to the creation of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the umbrella organization that is housed at the Poynter Institute.
“Our collective trust in reliable and authoritative information is being attacked by people in power,” said Baybars Orsek, director of IFCN, when he opened this year’s four-day conference on Wednesday. “Their manipulation of truth makes people vulnerable to bad actors capitalizing on their lack of access to quality information...
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