Standards self-assessment
First, plainly
FAXTR is not a signatory to the IFCN or any comparable body, and holds no third-party certification. What follows is our own procedures measured against the items those standards require. A self-assessment is not a certification. Items we do not meet are left in place rather than removed.
The items below follow the five commitments of the IFCN Code of Principles. The EFCSN code in Europe and RSF's Journalism Trust Initiative also put organisational and funding transparency and a corrections procedure at their core, so the gap in our column sits in the same place under any of them.
Non-partisanship and fairness
partialSource verification does not judge the political content of an article; it handles mechanical facts only — provenance, match with the source, presence of a debunk — so there is structurally no room for partisanship in the verdict. However, selection of participating outlets is still at our discretion, and we have not yet put the selection criteria in a form outsiders can check.
Standards and transparency of sources
metEvery record publishes the issuing organisation, the original file name, the time of receipt and the channel. The misinformation cross-check uses ClaimReview data from 100+ organisations, and the query used is recorded too.
Transparency of funding and organisation
not metRecords are issued under FAXTR's own name, so accountability for issuance is clear. But the operating entity and funding sources are not yet published. While this item is blank, we do not present the programme as an independent certification.
Standards and transparency of methodology
metThe whole procedure is published, and the body fingerprint is published together with the rule to compute it, so anyone can recompute it. What the badge does not assert is stated on every record.
An open and honest corrections policy
metThere is a channel where anyone can request a revocation, with a published turnaround. Revocation and correction counts are published per outlet, and revoked records are kept online and marked as revoked rather than deleted.
What is missing right now
- The operating entity, funding sources and revenue model, and any capital relationship with participating outlets
- The name of an individual verification lead — records are currently issued under FAXTR's organisational name and FAXTR is accountable for them; an individual name is not yet published
- Selection criteria for participating outlets, in a form outsiders can check
- A second-party confirmation step in which the issuing organisation confirms the original document
Until these are filled, this programme is presented not as "certification by an independent body" but as published procedures and checkable records. It is also why the badge's claims are deliberately confined to provenance.
FAQ
- Is FAXTR an IFCN signatory?
- No. FAXTR is not a signatory to the IFCN or any comparable body and holds no third-party certification. The standards page is a self-assessment, and self-assessment is not certification.
- Which standards does FAXTR not meet?
- Transparency of funding and organisation is not met: the operating entity and funding sources are not yet published. Non-partisanship is partially met: verdicts are mechanical, but the criteria for selecting participating outlets are not yet in a form outsiders can check.
- How can the verification be checked independently?
- Each record publishes the SHA-256 fingerprint of the article body at the time of verification together with the rule used to compute it, so anyone can fetch the live article and recompute the value. A read-only lookup API returns the record as JSON with no key.