Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
Fact-checking, once seen as a noble and common-sense endeavor to reduce errors and misunderstandings, has become increasingly contentious. Some autocrats have denounced it as a biased practice, as well as a violation of free speech that censors dissenting opinions. Amid concerns around misinformation and disinformation, a relentless news cycle on social media has made fact-checking an onerous process. As companies like Meta have announced they have stopped fact-checking, ostensibly to preserve free expression, questions loom about when inaccurate content should be removed from public sources. Is correcting false information a form of censorship? Can fact-checking endure in today’s climate of polarizing politics? How can the West restore this practice as a credible tool for safeguarding a free press, and counter efforts to discredit it as biased or one-sided? Experts will discuss.
Featured:
Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology and human development, Vanderbilt University.
Lauren Gibbons, state politics and policy reporter, Bridge Michigan.
Carlos Hernández-Echevarría, assistant director, head of public policy & institutional development, Maldita.es, Madrid.
Martin Shipton, associate editor, Nation.Cymru, Wales.
Martin Williams, director, Radar Public Relations, North Wales.
Michael Scott (moderator), senior dean, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.
Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), director, Free Speech Project, Georgetown University.
Fact-checking, once seen as a noble and common-sense endeavor to reduce errors and misunderstandings, has become increasingly contentious. Some autocrats have denounced it as a biased practice, as well as a violation of free speech that censors dissenting opinions. Amid concerns around misinformation and disinformation, a relentless news cycle on social media has made fact-checking an onerous process. As companies like Meta have announced they have stopped fact-checking, ostensibly to preserve free expression, questions loom about when inaccurate content should be removed from public sources. Is correcting false information a form of censorship? Can fact-checking endure in today’s climate of polarizing politics? How can the West restore this practice as a credible tool for safeguarding a free press, and counter efforts to discredit it as biased or one-sided? Experts will discuss.
Featured:
Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology and human development, Vanderbilt University.
Lauren Gibbons, state politics and policy reporter, Bridge Michigan.
Carlos Hernández-Echevarría, assistant director, head of public policy & institutional development, Maldita.es, Madrid.
Martin Shipton, associate editor, Nation.Cymru, Wales.
Martin Williams, director, Radar Public Relations, North Wales.
Michael Scott (moderator), senior dean, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.
Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), director, Free Speech Project, Georgetown University.
