Japan Fact-check Center established; $1.5 million from Google

The Safer Internet Association (SIA) will establish the Japan Fact-check Center (JFC), a fact-checking organization for countermeasures against disinformation and misinformation, on October 1.

The organization that conducts comprehensive countermeasures against false information and misinformation, such as preventing the distribution of false information and misinformation on the Internet, improving literacy, and training human resources. In an attempt to prevent social confusion caused by misinformation, such as false information about new coronavirus infection, the organization gathers information with experts and others, and discloses the authenticity of the information on its website.

For the time being, Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, will provide up to $1.5 million (approximately 217 million yen) for two years, and Yahoo Japan will provide 20 million yen per year. Google.org will continue to operate through funding and donations from platform providers and the telecommunications industry, with no plans to generate advertising revenue or charge fees.

One of the main activities will be the propagation of fact-checking articles, and 10 fact-checking articles per month will be distributed on the Japan Fact-Checking Center's website "Facts matter. Information of unknown authenticity distributed mainly through social networking services will be scrutinized by experts and fact-checkers to check whether it is true or not, and then converted into articles.

Basically, the fact-checking is limited to information distributed via social networking services, etc., and "accurate and rigorous news organizations are not included". Mr. Tadashi Yoshida, the secretary-general of the steering committee, explains the reason for this: "The mission of news organizations is to confirm and report facts on their own, and we leave this to the news organizations themselves". He also cited the fact that it is not possible to fact-check all articles due to personnel and resource issues.

The fact-checking system consists of an "Audit Committee," "Steering Committee," and "Editorial Department.

The Audit Committee, chaired by Tsunetoshi Shishido, Professor of the University of Tokyo Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, confirms the appropriateness of overall governance and checks for conflicts of interest with collaborating companies.

The Steering Committee, chaired by Professor Masahiro Sogabe of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Law, will establish operational guidelines, supervise their implementation, evaluate the effectiveness of fact-checking, and assess the selection of projects and fields under the supervision of the Audit Committee. The editorial staff writes fact-check articles based on these operational guidelines.

The editor-in-chief is Daisuke Furuta, a former reporter for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper who also served as the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed Japan. Under him are two editors, also from the Asahi Shimbun, as well as four interns and a three-person research team to conduct fact-checking.

Do you think news organizations confirm and report facts? Does that mean all infomation from TV and media are 100% truth??

Can they not envision what would happen if the people who set up the fact checking centers were liars? Those brainwashed by TV would not realize that.

It is as if a thief were to be made to guard a safe.

I have said a million times that all information is fake.

In fact, the attendees at the recent state funeral were propaganda. They were all paid actors.

According to this note

First 10 attendees are allowed to show their faces,
subsequent attendees are allowed to show their faces in the bottom two rows NG (face up),
and the top two rows are allowed to show their faces.

They seem to be having a lot of fun.