About us

Working together on a big idea

We encourage personal responsibility and creativity in our entire team. We live an open culture of discussion and clear communication. We support our employees in their daily work.

Factinsect is an enjoyable place to work, create and collaborate.

The Factinsect Factchecking Team

The work of our team and organization is independent and transparent. We only work with business partners who fully respect the independence of our fact checking. The artificial intelligence we use to support our fact check is trained in a way that it is non-biased, fully transparent, and follows the ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI by the European Union.

CV Romana Dorfer

CV Silja Kempinger

Please have a look at our imprint for more information on our organisational structure and team members.

Factinsect has been founded by Romana Dorfer and Silja Kempinger. They are supported by a group of highly specialised mentors, advisors, and partners. The company is based at Science Park Graz.

False news have the potential to cause serious unrest in our society. We want to help regain common factual basis for a constructive and peaceful coexistence. This idea lead to the technology for comparing text content. Comparing content can be used for fact checking, information comparison or for classifying information.

We live "news democracy" and treat information the same way.

We do not censor, we show differences.

We help readers to better classify information.

We follow the EU ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence.

We respect privacy and ensure transparency.

Be a better place. Make the world a better place.

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Our Policy on Non-Partisanship, Fairness, and Transparency

At Factinsect, we have high standards to ensure that you can trust the results of the fact check. We give you full transparency on how we do a fact check, we do not take any sides, we do not support any political agenda, we do not focus on any specific topic, we work independently, and every fact check is conducted the same way.

This is how we make sure that each fact check is unbiased, fair, and transparent to our users:

• We use the same method for each fact check, independent from the topic and content of the news item we fact check and independent of who initiates the fact check.
• Factinsect does not focus on any topic. Users can initiate a fact check from any online source in German language and on any topic that is dealt with in Austrian media.
• By default, Factinsect shows the sources it used for every fact check. For the automated fact check we only use media that follows the journalistic code of honor. For the complementary editorial fact check we offer for selected claims, we primarily rely on primary sources and other relevant, high quality sources.
• Factinsect does not have commercial or other relevant relationships with any government or corporation that influence our work or the fact checks. Factinsect has received funding from SFG (Steirische Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft), FFG (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft), AplusB Scale-up programme (Science Park Graz), European Union’s framework Horizon 2020 for research and innovation programme, Google Startup programme, AWS activate programme, Goodshares Consulting (Sinnova Holding), Stadt Graz, Microsoft Azure (Funding Table). None of these institutions have any form of influence on the work of Factinsect in general and the fact checks in particular. We only sign contracts with partners that make sure that our fact checking and editorial work is uninfluenced.
• Factinsect is not affiliated with any political party or politician, we do not support any political party or political agenda, except media literacy, transparency and accuracy in public debates.
• We don’t publish our views on political issues, except on the topics of transparency, accuracy and media literacy.
• Each fact check shows the exact source that has been used for each relevant paragraph, and includes links to the source. This makes each fact check transparent and replicable for users.
• By default, Factinsect checks each key element and relevant claim against several sources except for cases in which there is only one relevant source available.
• Factinsect uses quality media for reference that have not only signed the journalistic code of ethics (or regional equivalents), but adhere to it, delivering journalism of the highest quality. Following the journalistic code of ethics includes a complete imprint on their web site that contains full contact details and information on the board of directors and shareholders. Major infringements to the journalistic code of honour as published on the Presserat’s Website will make us exclude the medium from our list of reference media, even if they have signed the journalistic code of honour.

Getting in Contact with Factinsect

You have different ways to send in claims for checking and initiating a fact check.

1. Factinsect homepage: Paste a link to an online news article into the input field on the website to trigger a fact check.
2. You can also use this input field for checking individual claims rather than an entire news article.
3. Download and install our plugin for Firefox, Chrome and Edge desktop browser for fact checking online articles

Factinsect’s fact check is not limited to any specific topic, the tool can be used for any field of interest. Please note that the English version is still a prototype. Currently, fact checks work best for articles in German language that deal with topics relevant to people living in Austria. To get in contact with Factinsect, send us an e-mail to office @ factinsect.com or get in touch with us on Facebook or LinkedIn!

Our Fact Checking Methods

We do fact checks on different topics that are relevant in the Austrian media. You can initiate a fact check using the Factinsect browser plug-in or the input field on the Factinsect website. From these user inputs, we choose topics for a detailed fact check. In this case, the automated fact check is complemented by editorial fact checking, using highest journalistic standards, regardless of who made the claim. The topics we decide to do a detailed fact check meet the following criteria: relevance for the local reader’s market, diversity and variety concerning political parties and backgrounds, topics, genders, professional background, and other aspects.

The Factinsect AI fact checking software, specially developed and trained by our experts, gives us a good basic overview of available information on the topic, as well as different viewpoints and opinions. We then refine the automated fact checking result by adding further research, from primary sources if available, and other reliable sources. If applicable, we contact the person who made the claim, and include the reply into the fact check, if the person decides to reply within reasonable time.

The fact checking result is highly transparent - the automated fact checking software even tells you which parts of the text have been confirmed or refuted by which other sources.

There are four categories of results that give you a clear indication on the credibility of the news you are fact checking:

• Mostly refuted: the central statement or statements have been refuted.
• Partly refuted: there are central statements that have been refuted
• Mostly confirmed: the central statements have been confirmed. Auxiliary statements have been refuted.
• Confirmed: Both central and auxiliary statements have been confirmed.

You Think We Made a Mistake - Let Us Know:

Our Corrections Policy

When you notice a mistake or feel like we have missed important information in a fact check, please let us know! The Factinsect software and website (https://factinsect.com/de/factchecks) include the “Report Error” button that allows you to send in your request by filling out the form. Please provide us with verifiable clues so that we can follow them up and check whether our fact checks contain an error, or are correct. We receive all reported errors and take your concern seriously!

Typical errors we correct

• New or updated information is available
• we picked sources that have a different context or
• we came to a wrong conclusion by comparing the claim with another source.

If a fact check contains a mistake, we publish a revised version at https://factinsect.com/de/factchecks. All of our manually reviewed fact checks have a version history to show our changes as transparently as possible.

Our software resolves some errors automatically if more sources are indexed over time. In this case, no manual correction is necessary from our side. However, we cannot manually verify claims and articles that are ambiguous, subjective, insulting, satirical, predictions about the future, or no sources are available on the topic.

This is how we handle complaints

We receive all reports sent in via the "Report Error"-button and review them if the complaint is justified and comprehensible. If a report meets these criteria, we do a manual re-check and publish the updated result on our website including the change history. If the user decides to provide us with their email address, they receive an updated version of the fact check.

Take a sneak peek into startup life at Factinsect!