Our evidence methodology

The rules every verdict has to pass, whoever the client is and whichever side they are on.

No source gets automatic trust

A company statement, an advocacy group's press release, a government agency, a newspaper, an online review, and an expert quote all start in the same place: as claims to be checked. That includes our own clients' statements. Once a source has at least three approved checks, its track record shows how those claims held up. It informs reviewers; it never replaces checking the claim itself.

Rate claims, never people

TruthRanking judges statements against evidence. It does not label anyone a liar, guess at motives, or score a person's character. The same person can make one well-supported claim and one unsupported claim in the same paragraph, and each is rated on its own.

Unverified is not false

If no evidence has been found yet, the claim is unverified. To call a claim contradicted, the record has to link the specific evidence that contradicts it: a permit, a lab report, an official dataset, a court record, or another primary document.

Split mixed claims

"The stadium will cost more than the city's entire parks budget, which is outrageous" contains a measurable claim and an opinion. TruthRanking splits them. The measurable part gets a verdict. The opinion is labeled opinion and gets no truth rating. Predictions are labeled as predictions and checked against the modeling or studies they rely on.

Attribute every claim to who actually published it

Each claim records the publisher, the author where there is a byline, the date, and the exact quote. A news story that reports what someone said is attributed to the speaker, with the outlet as the place it appeared. Copies, reposts, and screenshots of the same statement are linked as republications, not counted as independent confirmation.

Evidence strength is shown, not implied

Every verdict carries an evidence level: no evidence, repetition only, a single independent origin, multiple independent origins, or conflicting evidence. A claim repeated by many outlets that all trace back to one press release is "repetition only," however many times it appears.

Private evidence capture

Before any correction is sent, the page is captured privately: the raw HTML, a full-page screenshot, the capture time, and a SHA-256 fingerprint, stored in a private, access-controlled vault. We do not use public archive services, because a public copy keeps the claim online after it is taken down. See why private capture matters.

Two people, every time

The person who drafts a verdict cannot approve it. A second reviewer has to sign off, and a verdict that needs evidence cannot be approved without it. The same two-person rule applies to every outbound correction.