In early 2020, just months into the coronavirus pandemic, the internet in China was flooded with fake international news about the disease. Blogs and internet chat groups were awash with rumours such as Covid-19 patients in the United States were killing themselves en masse and Russia’s health minister had confirmed that Sars-CoV-2 was a synthetic virus. “Even some of my family, friends and colleagues kept sharing rumours about the Covid-19 situation in other countries. It was outrageous,” 42-year-old Shanghai-based journalist Wei Xing said. Wei, who co-founded online magazine Sixth Tone and has worked for various media organisations, was appalled and decided to fight back, teaming up with dozens of volunteers to launch independent non-profit China Fact Check in August that year. The group targeted international “news” on mainland Chinese social networks, hoping to stop misinformation before it could really take hold. Two years later, China Fact Check has become the biggest of its kind in China, publishing more than 500 reports on topics ranging from the pandemic to the US election to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It survives by walking a fine political line, attracting advertising and harnessing the power of dedicated volunteers. Meet the man fighting fake news on the Chinese internet Each investigation begins with a suggestion from either within the team or a member of the public. Senior fact-checkers decide whether to pursue the topic and then the organisation’s “information detectives” start following the trail. The team sticks strictly to international news. “We neither check domestic news, nor Chinese content on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter,” Wei said. He said focusing on international news had a number of advantages, including the lower risk of crossing official “red lines”. There was also greater access to information in other countries and a wealth of misinformation about international content in China. The group has more than 40 investigators, mostly university students and young professionals from various backgrounds. They are trained and their work is reviewed by a quality review committee, comprising Wei, his media colleagues and senior fact-checkers. The verification process follows the code of principles set by the International Fact-Checking Network. Each report is accompanied by detailed arguments and multiple sources, explaining how the rumours developed. The reports are posted on a WeChat account, which has about 90,000 followers, and distributed on major news aggregators such as Toutiao and Baidu. If the reports are taken offline, they can still be seen on the backup archive Chinafactcheck.com. Its WeChat articles usually have 8,000 to 10,000 views, with some attracting around 1 million, and it stays afloat thanks to advertising and article fees paid by internet platforms. China played key role in spreading Covid-19 conspiracies, investigation finds But China Fact Check is not the only independent group in China taking on misinformation. Former Nanjing University teacher Zheng Jiawen launched NJU FactCheck, China’s first independent fact-checking project, with her students in 2017. Unlike China Fact Check, the NJU project verified content about Chinese current affairs, social issues, health as well as international news. It posted its articles on major Chinese social media and news aggregation platforms and, according to its annual reports, had more than 33,000 WeChat followers by the end of 2021. “In the post-truth era … high-quality information is vital to regaining the public’s confidence in journalism. We should help audiences clarify clues and explore facts in the fog of rumours,” Zheng told a university news platform in 2018. The service has taken bold steps to take China’s environment minister, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and state broadcaster CCTV to task over public statements. It countered claims by the ministry that on a three-year sliding average, China’s air quality had improved significantly and at a rapid rate. NJU FactCheck said its research indicated that the country’s air quality had not “improved significantly” and China was 14th among 15 major developed and BRICS countries. It also unpicked CCTV claims that food sold in China by Japanese firm Muji were made in a contaminated part of Tokyo. The NJU FactCheck team said the products were manufactured in Osaka, a non-nuclear-polluted area. In one report in February 2020, the team referred to unexplained variations in Covid-19 case numbers reported by the Wuhan health commission, attracting more than 52,000 page views. But Zheng and her team attracted unwanted attention as well. Weibo influencer Yilidalei Zhi Nu – or Rage of the Illidari – and his nationalist followers accused her of supporting Hong Kong independence and being a Japanese sympathiser. The accusations were based on posts Zheng wrote criticising state media and supporting actor Zhang Zhehan who had been photographed posing in front of a cherry tree near the Yasukuni Shrine. In August last year, her Weibo account was permanently removed by the social media platform. Zheng was also forced to leave the university after it received anonymous complaints, multiple sources with knowledge of the incident said. Her name was taken down from the school’s official website. Since then, NJU FactCheck has published just five fact-checking pieces and appears to be shifting its focus to explainers, data journalism and feature stories. Fake news causing rift between Chinese and foreigners: top Beijing adviser Wei, an experienced media professional, and China Fact Check’s members are well aware of the need to tread carefully. In early April, several videos of the Bucha massacre were widely circulated on Chinese social media, claiming that Ukrainian troops deliberately staged the scene. China Fact Check produced four reports on the rumours. Each article ends with a cautious note that the truth of the incident was subject to further investigation, citing the statement of the Chinese representative to the United Nations as support. “We cannot reveal any opinion in the reports,” Wei said, saying it was partly a requirement for fact-checking, but also to reduce pressure from censors and cyberbullies. So far only five of the group’s WeChat articles have been deleted. One of those reports was debunking a widespread conspiracy theory that US pharmaceutical firm Moderna created the coronavirus. The theory became the top trending topic on Weibo on March 24 after state media outlets republished the claims made by influential blogger Tao Wen. China Fact Check’s article was removed by WeChat on the grounds that it was “required by relevant laws, regulations and policies”. The Weibo account of Yin Ye, chief executive of research group BGI Genomics, was also suspended after he questioned the scientific foundation of the rumour. More recently, a China Fact Check article about university autonomy in Vietnam was censored, despite not crossing any known red lines. Wei said the articles might have inadvertently triggered an artificial intelligence programme but it was difficult to tell because there was no appeal process on WeChat. China Fact Check also ran into problems in September when it tackled rumours that US President Joe Biden was incontinent. Hawkish international relations researcher Shen Yi accused the group of taking a questionable political stance and his nationalist followers then began to dox the checkers, calling the organisation the “ second PaperClip ”, a reference to a popular science blog accused of “smearing China” and supporting Taiwanese independence. “To avoid further harassment, we removed the profiles of our volunteers from the website,” Wei said. “Later, fortunately, [the situation] didn’t fester too much.” Wei has also been spreading the message about fact-checking tools through speeches, workshops and seminars at Shanghai International Studies University, TEDxChengdu and online. He is hoping to expand into media literacy lectures for secondary school students and senior citizens, and launched a bigger event called Fact Fest China. “Fact-checking is not something cold with a high threshold. It can be fun and everyone can get involved,” he said. Despite this effort, countering rumours is an uphill battle. Stephanie Jean Tsang, assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and co-director of HKBU Fact Check, said readers and viewers were selective about news sources. “Audiences tend to use their own positions to presuppose the motives of media organisations and selectively distrust information that differs from theirs,” Tsang said. Fang Kecheng, assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said it would take a long time to reach the desired result through independent fact-checkers alone. Fang said big tech companies should support such fact-checking projects and do their best to promote their content. “It is disappointing that Chinese internet platforms haven’t done much in this regard,” he said. Fang said the specific limitations in China meant that some survival strategies used by fact-checking organisations elsewhere were difficult to adopt on the mainland. International internet platforms such as Facebook and news agencies such as Agence France-Presse have their own fact-checking departments but Fang said Chinese platforms and media outlets were less interested in this. In addition, fact-checking content in China struggles to attract interest among advertisers. Fang said the traffic for fact-checking content was not at a level to make it profitable enough. Sponsorship from foundations was not an option either. “Chinese foundations are strictly limited and not allowed to get involved in the media content business,” he said. “There is no other way out in sight but to rely on the dedication of individuals and small volunteer groups.” Tsang of Baptist University is more optimistic. “The different modes only determine the size of the organisation. As long as there is a volunteer interested in helping, the organisation can continue to operate.” Wei, too, is not disheartened. “I know it’s impossible to try to solve the global disinformation problem on my own. But to make a small step forward is better than to do nothing at all,” he said. “With all our fans and friends who care about truth and support us all the time, we have no reason to be disillusioned.”