Manifesto

Objective

The objective of FactBenchmark is to support and encourage quality research in the field of ‘fake news’ detection, with a special focus on real-time detection of fact from rumor.

We don’t aim to tackle this problem ourselves, but rather act in a supporting role, encouraging an open benchmark and the sharing of well-structured data between and amongst researchers in the field.

Guiding Principles

Given that objective the following are our agreed guiding principles :

• FactBenchmark as an organization is committed to to acting as a trusted third party.
• FactBenchmark as an organization is commited to acting in a transparent way, so that third parties can not only trust, but verify our objectivity and transparent objectives.
• In order to remain objective and un-involved in the benchmark, FactBenchmark will not accept financial or other consideration that may hamper its ability to remain objective in regards to the benchmark.
• All data submitted to the benchmark will be made freely available to all interested researchers in perpetuity (though sometimes after a brief, reasonable, embargo period).
• Whenever possible, data must be clearly sourced and retain its sourcing during processing.
• Data is never deleted, though sometimes it can be marked hidden. Hidden data remains in the archive.
• FactBenchmark will not, itself,make value judgements as to truthiness or relevancy excepting that when it does it will clearly mark data as such, and in such cases utilize the same api, under the same rules and business logic, as other agents interacting with the benchmark.
• If judgement calls are required, FactBenchmark will aim to consult with the founding members of FactBenchmark and make decisions that support the overall objective of the project, as outlined above.
• We are committed to releasing the code for this project as open source.
• We are committed to open data as a concept and in making all data for this benchmark available for research.