Who runs the website factually.co
Executive summary
Available reporting paints a mixed picture: independent fact-checking summaries identify factually.co (branded “Factually”) as a project created and run by a single independent developer using AI [1], while corporate registries show a similarly named company, FACTUALLY LIMITED, registered in the UK at 16 Beaumont Street, Oxford [2]; third‑party site risk assessments flag uncertainty about ownership and legitimacy [3]. Reporting does not provide a definitive, public chain of ownership tying the factually.co website to the UK company, so the question “who runs factually.co” cannot be answered with complete documentary certainty from the sources provided.
1. What the fact-checking profile says: a solo developer claim
Media Bias/Fact Check’s profile states that “Factually” is an independent fact‑checking tool created in November 2024 and owned entirely by one independent developer, funded through voluntary user support and operating without corporate backing; that profile also describes the site’s AI‑driven method and notes the platform’s disclaimers about AI limitations [1].
2. Corporate records that complicate the solo‑developer narrative
The United Kingdom Companies House entry for FACTUALLY LIMITED (company number 10221837) lists a registered office at 16 Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, and provides a public corporate filing history and people associated with that legal entity, indicating that a company with the “Factually” name exists in official registries [2].
3. Third‑party trust reports and absence of direct proof
At least one domain‑risk assessor flags factually.co as having medium‑low trust and urges caution while inviting site owners to provide proof of legitimacy, which underscores that independent verification of ownership or operatorship of factually.co is not readily established in public records cited by that assessor [3].
4. Distinguishing similarly named entities and avoiding conflation
Separate projects with similar names add confusion: Yahoo’s acquisition press release about “The Factual” (an algorithm‑driven news rating company) and the About page for “Factually Health” are distinct entities with different founders and histories, and neither source links those organizations to the factually.co domain as described by Media Bias/Fact Check or Companies House—this makes it important not to conflate The Factual (acquired by Yahoo) or Factually Health with factually.co without explicit evidence [4] [5].
5. Assessment, alternative readings and reporting limitations
Reconciling the sources yields two credible possibilities supported by the reporting: either factually.co is indeed an independent developer‑run project as described by Media Bias/Fact Check [1], or it is operated by or connected to a UK‑registered company named FACTUALLY LIMITED [2]; the Scam Detector entry underscores that public proof tying domain registration, corporate filings, and the site’s public claims has not been fully demonstrated to third‑party auditors [3]. Because none of the supplied sources contains a direct, contemporaneous domain WHOIS record, a site‑maintainer statement, or a corporate filing explicitly linking factually.co to FACTUALLY LIMITED, the reporting cannot conclusively name the operative party beyond the plausible-but-unverified claims already cited.
6. What to watch next and potential motives
Readers should note incentives shaping these narratives: independent‑developer claims can bolster perceived editorial independence, while corporate registration could imply more formal legal accountability or different commercial motives; the presence of AI‑driven claims (acknowledged in MBFC’s profile) raises questions about automation, funding sources, and editorial oversight that merit scrutiny in future reporting [1]. The most authoritative next step would be a direct confirmation from the site owners, an up‑to‑date WHOIS/domain registry record, or a corporate filing explicitly connecting the domain to the UK company—none of which appears in the cited material.