Why we fact check what we fact check (even if it seems really, really obvious)

No, Tesco has not been selling a bag of carrots grown in Chernobyl.

No, a picture of the Prime Minister strolling down the street in a pink hijab isn’t real.

And no, Bill Gates isn’t making ‘maggot milk’.

Those are just some of the weird and wonderful claims we’ve spotted circulating on social media in recent weeks—all of which we have fact checked.

When we do publish such fact checks though, we’re often asked—why? Why are you bothering to fact check this stuff? Does anyone really believe it? 

And often the answer is—yes, some people do.

Checking misinformation online, and in particular on social media, is an important part of what Full Fact does. It sits alongside our in-depth political fact checking, and allows us to cover a different range of topics and help different audiences. 

The nature of online fact checking is very different to political fact checking—much of what we look at is videos and images, and our team which specialises in such fact checking uses a different set of skills, including OSINT and digital verification techniques. Many of the claims we look at on social media are very serious and relate to wars and conflicts or other major global events. In the past year, for instance, we’ve fact checked dozens of videos, images and claims from and about Israel and Gaza. 

But when we’re looking at claims that go viral on social media we cover a huge range of topics—and they include satirical claims which are shared without context, or claims which some may consider obviously false.

The key word there is ‘some’, however. Because it’s important to be clear that even if something seems obvious to you or your immediate network, it may not be to everyone, particularly more casual internet users. 

Choosing what to check

Deciding when to fact check something is an art not a science. We really, really don’t want to be the ‘fun police’, and sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time going down meme rabbit holes to make sure we’ve not missed an in-joke. If we’re considering fact checking something we always look for evidence, for example in the comments or social media responses, that there are people who are being genuinely misled. Even if something may sound really unlikely, or have been originally shared as a joke, very often there are people who simply don’t get it and are confused, upset or angry as a result—and that happens much more than you might think.

There’s also potential harm here, even in seemingly trivial claims. Claims about businesses and individuals can damage reputations, even if only a small minority believe them. AI generated imagery which is shared as if it’s real can gradually erode trust in information online. It’s getting increasingly hard to believe what you see on social media—and as Full Fact’s editor I’m not ashamed to admit that pretty much every week a fact check’s pitched in a morning meeting about an image or a viral claim which I’d seen scrolling the night before and had just assumed was real.

Clearing up the confusion

Getting the tone right is absolutely vital when we fact check this kind of claim—we don’t want to patronise anyone or imply that they're stupid for believing something. If we do that, they’ll just ignore what we’re saying anyway.

But publishing a fact check allows us to clear up the confusion in very practical ways. Our fact check appears in search engine results, meaning if someone is unsure about a claim and Googles it, they can immediately see the answer. 

We can also directly rate claims shared on certain platforms through our participation in Meta’s Third Party Fact Checking programme. This allows us to rate false and misleading posts and links on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. People looking at those posts and links are told that we’ve fact checked the claim, shown our conclusion and given the option to read our fact check.

With luck, fact checking a misleading claim will ensure it won’t be repeated—though viral content comes in waves, and all too often we see so-called ‘zombie claims’ recirculating. 

None of this, of course, is to say we always get it right. Every fact check is a judgement call, and often we do decide something is too far-fetched or too obviously satirical to be worth covering. 

But with social media increasingly central to the information we all consume on a daily basis, we believe it’s important to take a proactive approach to checking a broad range of claims, including those which may only be misleading to a minority. Even if it’s about carrots from Chernobyl…