Business Insider referenced a 2023 report from the International Fact-Checking Network (shudders) about how the fact-checking complex is funded. [Business Insider] I followed a link to the report (credit to Business Insider for including it) and found the relevant passage:
Income from Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program and grants remain fact-checkers’ predominant revenue streams. Notably, grants now support approximately 87% of survey respondents, overtaking Meta’s 3PFC as the most common funding source. Other significant sources include training activities (55%) and memberships or user donations (50%).
Meta was the second-biggest funder of the fact-checking complex after unpsecified grants. Page 14 of the report noted that 63.5% of members of the IFCN participated in Facebook’s third party fact-checking (3PFC) program in 2023, which was actually down from 66.7% in 2022, 66.3% in 2021, and 79.2% in 2020. Page 15 of the report noted that only 14.6% participated in TikTok’s (which should be banned) fact-checking program (the report noted that every participant in TikTok’s program also participated in Facebook’s program).
That the fact-checking complex was receiving significant funding from Facebook was hardly a secret, but the particulars are interesting now that Facebook is ending its fact-checking program. Regardless of how this changes Facebook, it will likely have a material effect on the revenue of some of the fact-checking entitities which participated in Facebook’s program. For whatever it is worth, I consider this news a positive development for reasons I discussed back in 2020 in my little-read Proposals for Fact-Checking Reform essay (which came at the height of the fact-checking industrial complex’s power). For a more incisive take, I largely agree with John Sexton’s post yesterday in HotAir, which was what initially led me to the Business Insider and IFCN reports. [John Sexton]