Live audio and no recording might complicate the work of fact-checkers on this new platform  Email not displaying correctly?
View it in your browser ([link removed]) .
[link removed]
[link removed]
• In this edition you will find:
• What is Clubhouse like — from a fact-checker's perspective
• It's true. You can name a cockroach after your ex and see it being fed to other animals
• Three legal allegations against fact-checkers were rejected by courts
A fact-checker lands on Clubhouse

By Boumen Japet/Shutterstock

There is a new social media platform trending worldwide. It's called Clubhouse ([link removed]) and it brings together people like Tesla's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. For the moment, it seems to be beyond the reach of the broader fact-checking community, but this should change soon.

I joined Clubhouse this week. And it was only possible because I own an iPhone. The hot new network only runs on iOS.

To be accepted, I also had to deploy an invitation code. Downloading the app isn't enough. To be a Clubhouse user you must know the right people ...

As reported by tech websites ([link removed]) and popular newspapers ([link removed]) , Clubhouse aims to be the most exclusive social media platform ever launched. It offers its users the opportunity to enter different chat rooms (clubs) and share live audio feeds — not text or images — with thousands of other people. Rooms are divided by topic and you can even schedule your participation by scrolling through what discussions will be up in the next hours.

As a fact-checker working during the pandemic, I was eager to see if popular misinformation tropes such as anti-vax content had already landed at Clubhouse. Even though the platform's guidelines ([link removed]) say clearly that users "may not spread false information," I thought I'd try to find some. So I joined a club called "All things Covid" after typing "vaccines" into the app's search bar.

"All things Covid" brings together 5,100 people. It was launched by a physician and has the following description: "Join us for evidence-based conversations about all things related to the novel coronavirus + COVID-19: vaccines, healthcare, disparities, treatments & public health. Science first."

Wow. "Science first." I was impressed.

I jumped to a second club in my search for information about vaccines. It was called "A Good War" and it says it brings together "renowned public health and medical leaders" to share "knowledge & answers about COVID-19." In the list of followers I found scholars from Johns Hopkins University, respected epidemiologists, physicians and more. It didn’t have a livestream going on when I visited it so I moved onto a third club.

In this one, I spent about 15 minutes listening to a presentation about how bacteria (not viruses) are becoming more resistant and how dangerous this could be. It sounded fact-based, and I actually learned from this experience.

I moved on to search for mis/disinformation about politics. I typed "Donald Trump" and, as of Feb. 9, there were no clubs dedicated to the former U.S president. The same was true about "Jair Bolsonaro," Brazil’s current president. President Joe Biden's name turned up a club called "Madame Vice Presidente." The group has 792 followers and shows a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris.

"No COVID-19 falsehoods? No political disinformation? That is a weird platform," I thought.

And, yes it is, but not exactly for those reasons. As noted by Forbes ([link removed]) this week, Clubhouse’s design inherently excludes people with certain disabilities. "On the product side, the most obvious issue is there are zero affordances made for deaf or hearing impaired people. There is zero support for live captioning, which means those with less than perfect hearing (or none at all) are excluded," reporter Steven Aquino wrote.

There is more.

Writing for online outlet GritDaily ([link removed]) , Olivia Smith warned that on Clubhouse, "there's no path to accountability." She cited the fact that the app doesn't keep old posts or audio files and doesn't allow users to record conversations. “There is no way to prove that someone said anything controversial at all," Smith wrote.

The lack of these features will surely produce barriers for fact-checkers. It will be not only hard to choose what club to join but Clubhouse also requires that fact-checkers listen to hours and hours of conversations before selecting what claims should be assessed.

With the myriad of other platforms fact-checkers are forced to contend with, would it be best for them to ignore Clubhouse for now? Facebook didn't. According to The New York Times ([link removed]) , it's already building a product to compete with Clubhouse.

Neither did the Chinese government.

On Monday, after a rare moment of cross-border dialogue between users from mainland China and others outside the country, Chinese censors moved in ([link removed]) . If Xi Jinping's administration isn't ignoring Clubhouse, why should fact-checkers? Why should you?

Cris Tardáguila

Interesting fact-checks
Reproduction from Butac
• Butac: "Nutella, gender, Salvini and a salary bonus" ([link removed]) (In Italian)
• What a headline! And what a great topic to fact-check! The original posts mix politics with food and labor issues. But here are the facts: Nutella did pay a 2,000-euro bonus to its employees — but it happened months ago. The anti-Salvini rainbow never existed.
• Snopes: "Zoo: Name a Cockroach After Your Ex, And We’ll Feed it to a Predator" ([link removed])
• Valentine's Day is right around the corner — and here is a fact-check that might make some singles laugh. The San Antonio Zoo, in Texas, is offering to name a cockroach or rodent after your ex and feed it to a larger animal.
Quick hits
From the news:
• "Why ending anonymity would not make social media better," ([link removed]) from Columbia Journalism Review’s Mathew Ingram. The “know your customer” rule seems to work for Wall Street, preventing money laundering. But would it work against "rhetoric laundering?” At least one U.S. senator is working on legislation that would require ([link removed]) social media users to verify their identities. A great topic for further discussions, correct?
• "TikTok to flag and downrank unsubstantiated claims fact-checkers can't verify," ([link removed]) from TechCrunch. The video platform announced on a blog post ([link removed]) published Feb. 3 that it will not only remove videos identified as false by their fact-checking partners but those that are considered "inconclusive."
• "Can a 'psychological vaccine' protect against fake news and COVID misinformation?" ([link removed]) from Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A series of trials over the past decade ([link removed]) have shown that exposing people in advance to the tricks of misinformation makes them better at recognizing misinformation later.
• “Facebook is finally banning vaccine misinformation,” ([link removed]) from Recode. Facebook announced Monday it will ban all content promoting misinformation about any and all vaccines, rather than just those used against COVID-19. CNN reported Wednesday ([link removed]) , the company would also experiment with reducing political content on the News Feeds of select users in Brazil, Indonesia and Canada.
From/for the community:
• IFCN Talks #1 ([link removed]) happened Monday and researchers were clear: “Fact-checkers shouldn’t be shields for social media platforms.” Here is your chance to catch up with the fact-checking community and the conversation we had with Lucas Graves and Francisco Brito Cruz.
• Africa Check ([link removed]) launched "Le faux dans l'Info" on Monday, Feb. 8. This monthly podcast aims to debunk a hoax in the presence of its author. Oh yes! (In French)
• At least three allegations against fact-checkers were rejected by courts this week. One in Greece, against Ellinika Hoaxes ([link removed]) , one in Kazakhstan against Factcheck.kz ([link removed]) , and one in Brazil, against Aos Fatos ([link removed]) . Ellinika Hoaxes was able to win its case with help from the Fact-Checkers Legal Support Initiative ([link removed]) .
• MediaWise’s Teen Fact-Checking Network posted three new fact-checks to its YouTube page this week. Two about the Capitol ([link removed]) Riot ([link removed]) , and one about COVID-19 ([link removed]) .
Events and training
Courtesy of the Knight Center
• Feb. 15 to March 14: “Disinformation and Fact-Checking in Times of COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Offered in Spanish ([link removed]) , Portuguese ([link removed]) and Guaraní ([link removed]) , this free online course is produced by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas with the IFCN and the European Union.
• Is it possible to teach media literacy using just tweets? Maldita, in Spain, is trying. Its one-week course — #VerifyIn21Tweets — is up and offers bilingual content: in English ([link removed]) and in Spanish ([link removed]) .

If you are a fact-checker and you’d like your work highlighted in the next edition, send us an email at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) by next Tuesday.

Any corrections? Tips? We’d love to hear from you: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Thanks for reading Factually.
Cristina Tardáguila
Associate Director, IFCN
@ctardaguila ([link removed])
Harrison Mantas
Reporter, IFCN
@HarrisonMantas ([link removed])

[link removed] [link removed] [link removed] [link removed] mailto:[email protected]?subject=Feedback%20for%20Poynter
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
© All rights reserved Poynter Institute 2021
801 Third Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
If you don't want to receive email updates from Poynter, we understand.
You can update your subscription preferences here ([link removed]) or unsubscribe ([link removed]) .