Faith in fact-checking: A critical review of the global fact-checking movement

Abstract

Since 2016, an academic and regulatory model has been consolidated to address disinformation under the name of fact-checking, referring to the verification of public discourse. Fact-checking has been uniformly replicated across diverse countries, mostly led by private organizations that have received financial support from international institutions, cooperation agencies, and technology corporations as a tool against disinformation. This paper presents a critical review of the model embedded in the fact-checking movement. Our critique focuses on two dimensions: methodologically, as a global protocol for comparing public discourse with data, and epistemologically, as a key institution among the proposed solutions to combat misinformation.  This analysis is based on a systematic review of major studies on verification as a tool to counter disinformation, aiming for a critical evaluation drawn from experiences and findings. The review focuses on three blind spots of the model: the epistemological premises of fact-checking, its institutional-programmatic implementation, and its strategic approach—both in detecting its own limitations and in assessing the factors that constrain its ability to improve information quality and deliver the solutions suggested by published findings. A systematic review of recent publications reveals that enthusiasm for the fact-checking model preceded studies assessing its real impact, and that actual evidence reveals its epistemological and strategic limitations.