Demagog, Snopes, PolitiFact, Google Reverse Image, Wayback Machine — a complete map of the websites and tools professional fact-checkers use, plus the methodology and a real case study you can apply yourself.
The How to Search? team — content verified on the basis of official sources from the IFCN, the Poynter Institute, and the Duke University Reporters’ Lab (full list at the bottom of the article), current as of August 2026.
What fact-checking actually is
Fact-checking is the systematic verification of specific, checkable claims — statements by politicians, viral posts, photos, or recordings — based on primary sources and a transparent methodology. It’s more than a home “check on Google”: professional fact-checking organizations operate according to a code of principles that is verified every year by an outside institution.
The largest such supervisory body is the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), founded in 2015 at the Poynter Institute in Florida. An organization that wants to join the IFCN must demonstrate compliance with five principles: nonpartisanship, transparency of sources, transparency of funding, a transparent methodology, and a policy of open and honest corrections. In 2021, the IFCN was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to the global fight against disinformation.
Methodology: 5 steps of professional fact-checking
Whether it’s Demagog in Kraków or Snopes in California, the process looks surprisingly similar:
Choosing a claim to check
Fact-checkers don’t check opinions or predictions about the future — only specific, objectively verifiable statements of fact.
Getting to the primary source
Priority goes to raw data at the source: government documents, reports from international organizations (WHO, OECD, Eurostat), data from statistical offices — not articles that summarize them.
Cross-verification
One source isn’t enough. The standard is to confirm information in at least two places that are independent of each other.
Evaluation and classification
The claim is placed on a scale (e.g., True / False / Manipulation at Demagog, or the Truth-O-Meter from “True” to “Pants on Fire” at PolitiFact) based on clearly described criteria.
Publication with full transparency
The article contains all the sources, so the reader can verify the fact-checker’s work. Errors are corrected openly and quickly — this is one of the hard rules of the IFCN code.
Polish fact-checking websites
Polish fact-checking is younger than American fact-checking, but it’s developing very quickly — from one organization in 2014 to several recognizable brands today.
Demagog
🇵🇱 PolandThe oldest Polish fact-checking organization. It was founded in April 2014, verifying politicians’ statements during the European Parliament elections. In 2019, it became the first Polish organization to join the IFCN, and in 2023 it met the requirements of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). Since 2019, it has been a partner in Meta’s independent fact-checking program.
OKO.press
🇵🇱 PolandAlongside Demagog, the second Polish organization on the list of fact-checkers maintained by the Duke University Reporters’ Lab — one of the most recognized, independent rankings of fact-checking organizations in the world.
Konkret24
🇵🇱 PolandTVN24’s fact-checking service, which checks politicians’ statements, viral posts, and recordings circulating on the Polish internet, with an emphasis on current national events.
AFP Fact Check
🇵🇱 PolandBefore Polish organizations joined the IFCN, it was the Warsaw bureau of the French news agency AFP that was Facebook’s official partner responsible for verifying questionable content published in Poland.
The international giants of fact-checking
Snopes
🌍 WorldThe oldest and most recognizable fact-checking website in the world. It grew out of… a Usenet discussion group about urban legends (alt.folklore.urban), run by David and Barbara Mikkelson. Today, it has several million page views a month and thousands of verified claims.
PolitiFact
🌍 WorldA project of the Tampa Bay Times, creator of the famous Truth-O-Meter — a rating scale from “True” to the best-known category, “Pants on Fire.” For its fact-checking of the 2008 presidential campaign, it received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting — the first such case for a website.
FactCheck.org
🌍 WorldA project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania — one of the pioneers of the genre, operating even before the social media era. It monitors politicians’ statements in ads, debates, and public appearances.
Full Fact / AP Fact Check
🌍 WorldFull Fact (United Kingdom) and AP Fact Check (Associated Press, USA) are other recognized, independent organizations belonging to the IFCN — good reference points when checking claims about international politics.
Tools worth knowing yourself
You don’t always have to wait for someone to verify something for you. These tools let you do your own mini fact-check in a few minutes:
Google Reverse Image / Lens
🛠️ ToolUpload or paste a link to a photo, and Google will show you where and when that image appeared online before. The basic tool for detecting photos taken out of context.
TinEye
🛠️ ToolThe world’s first commercial reverse image search engine, launched in 2008 — even before Google Images offered the feature. To this day, it’s a good alternative when Google can’t find the source.
InVID-WeVerify
🛠️ ToolA free browser plug-in, funded by the European Union, created specifically for verifying video recordings — it breaks a video down into key frames that can be checked separately through reverse image search.
Wayback Machine
🛠️ ToolThe Internet Archive stores hundreds of billions of archived pages. Ideal when an article has disappeared, has been quietly changed, or you want to check what a page looked like in the past.
A real case study: three claims, one truth
The methodology is best seen in a concrete example. The Snopes team once had to evaluate three claims circulating online at once:
A computer virus disguised as a “Pope Dance” video infects computers when opened.
Someone is injecting the HIV virus into bananas sold in stores.
An American pickup truck from Texas really was used by fighters in Syria.
Three claims, three completely different topics — and yet each one could be checked with the same, repeatable method: getting to the source (the video’s producer, the laboratories testing the supposedly infected fruit, satellite images and footage from the conflict), not guessing “by feel.” This is the best illustration of why method matters more than intuition — even the most absurd-sounding claim sometimes turns out to be true, and the most “plausible” one can be false.
Comparison: what to choose for what
| Website / tool | Reach | Best for | Active since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demagog | 🇵🇱 Poland | politicians’ statements | 2014 |
| Snopes | 🌍 World | viral rumors, photos | 1994 |
| PolitiFact | 🌍 USA | American politics | 2007 |
| Google Reverse Image | 🛠️ Tool | the origin of photos | 2011 |
| Wayback Machine | 🛠️ Tool | vanished/changed pages | 1996 |