How does Factually.co’s verification and sourcing process compare to established fact-checkers like Snopes or PolitiFact?

1. What major fact-checkers actually do: selection and focus

PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and Snopes follow discernible selection routines: PolitiFact and FactCheck.org tend to focus heavily on politically salient or suspicious claims and prioritize “national significance,” while Snopes covers a broader topic range driven often by reader interest and viral circulation rather than only politics ^{[1] [3] [2]}.

2. Sourcing norms: contacting claimants, primary sources, and avoidance of anonymity

Established outlets emphasize primary documentation and outreach: FactCheck.org and similar operations routinely contact the individual or organization responsible for a claim to request backup data or original sources, and have institutional norms against relying on anonymous sources to establish facts ^[1]. Snopes likewise documents sources and publishes evidence to allow readers to verify conclusions ^[2].

3. Rating systems, transparency and inter-checker agreement

Different fact-checkers use different scales (e.g., PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter, Snopes’ true/mixed/false schema) and those scale differences can create apparent discrepancies, even when substantive agreement exists; large-scale studies find high agreement between Snopes and PolitiFact after accounting for rating granularity, focus differences, and timing ^{[4] [5] [6]}. Researchers found near-unanimous verdicts once systematic discrepancies were adjusted, with only a single conflicting rating among matched claims in one study ^{[5] [6]}.

4. Methodological trade-offs and agenda-setting effects

Empirical work shows fact-checkers differ in what they choose to check: PolitiFact and AAP emphasize verifying suspicious political claims while Snopes and Logically report a higher proportion of affirmations of true claims, which affects perceived emphasis and agenda-setting in the fact-checking ecosystem ^[4]. These selection choices are not neutral editorial minutiae but shape public perception of what matters and can reflect implicit institutional priorities or audience-driven incentives ^[4].

5. Why the record on Factually.co is thin and how that limits comparison

The sources provided contain extensive documentation about Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and broader cross-checking research but contain no reporting, methodology statement, or independent evaluation of Factually.co’s verification or sourcing protocols; therefore any claim about Factually.co’s practices would be speculative and cannot be made from the available reporting ^{[3] [1] [2]}.

6. A practical rubric to assess Factually.co against established standards

In lieu of direct documentation, readers can evaluate Factually.co by checking whether it publicly discloses its selection criteria, cites primary sources for each claim, documents outreach to claimants, explains its rating scale and editorial independence, and whether external audits or cross-check studies find alignment with major checkers—these are the same benchmarks researchers used to compare Snopes and PolitiFact and to measure inter-checker agreement ^{[1] [4] [6]}.

7. Final assessment and caveats

Given the absence of verifiable reporting on Factually.co in the provided materials, the responsible conclusion is that a concrete comparison cannot be drawn from these sources; the established fact-checkers present a documented playbook—transparent sourcing, claimant contact, explicit rating systems, and documented selection principles—that should be the standard against which Factually.co is measured if or when it publishes comparable methodological detail ^{[1] [2] [3]}.