an ‘independent’ London-based fact checking service founded in 2010 by former Conservative Party donor Michael Samuel, a millionaire businessman and friend of Princess Diana who reportedly remained close to Prince William after her death, and co-founder & CEO Will Moy, a former board member of the anti-press ‘Hacked Off’. The non-profit recieves funding from tech giants Facebook, Google, and Foundations set up by billionaires like eBay creator Pierre Omidyar and left-wing investor George Soros approaching £1million-a-year in donations.
Full Fact started with Mr Moy but now has 19 staff, including journalists who previously worked for the BBC, Guardian, BuzzFeed, and a number of academics, based in a grand office overlooking St James’ Park and close to Buckingham Palace. The team review items flagged by users and rate them based on their accuracy – and insist they have safeguards ‘at every level’ to ensure they stay neutral. Anyone who works there is allowed to be a ‘non-active member of a political party’ – but is banned from saying publicly how they vote or express support for any political party.
In 2013 Full Fact started work on Automated Factchecking and in 2016 started working with Google to rate the veracity of facts stories, images and videos using their own software. They are also researching how machine learning and AI can improve the work they do. They were also a major player during the 2014 Scottish Independence campaign, the 2016 EU referendum campaign and the 2017 general election campaign.
Defending their impartiality Mr Moy told MailOnline: ‘We’re an independent and impartial charity with a cross-party board. We publish details of all our funders who donate more than £5,000 a year. No donor has any say over how Full Fact is run, what we fact check or publish. We don’t ask people to take our word for any conclusion we make. We provide links to all sources so that readers can check what we’ve said for themselves. Every party and candidate campaigning in this election is asking people for their trust. Ultimately voters will decide’.
