Entire World observes the International Fact-Checking Day on April 2. This day is all about setting the record straight with facts which exist, can be verified to safeguard people from "Fake News".

The fact-checkers are helping to protect the reputation of publishers by verifying facts and preventing any kind of misinformation. We live in a world where information comes from various social media sources (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter), which can be manipulated easily by agenda journalists or leaders which can further influence people's opinion. The world should be thankful to Fact-checkers as what they are doing to us is helping us find truth. 

HISTORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL FACT CHECKING DAY

The First International Fact-Checking day was observed in April 2, 2017 However the idea of having something like this was first discussed in 2014 at a conference in London. The media journalists and professional fact-checkers recognised the danger of misinformation primarily caused by social media platforms which are consumed by people in large numbers. In 2016, the United States Election campaign saw the impact of fake news on a larger scale which, then brought this issue into the forefront again, so the observance was officially conceptualised in 2016, but was celebrated a year later in 2017.

Official Promoter of this observance is International Fact-Checking Network (I.F.C.N.), which collaborates with various media organizations internationally. On this day, media organizations work around and contribute to the pool of resources that can help masses to equip themselves to check facts, and ways to recognize and prevent the spread of fake news.

The history of fact-checking is pretty old and it has its roots belonging to the age of Yellow Journalism when sensationalism had taken over the media stories to grab eyeballs for the sake of making money by a large number of media houses in earlier part of 19th century.

RESOURCES FOR FACT CHECKS

FactCheck.org: FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The website is used to monitor the accuracy of facts stated by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. 

PolitiFact: This was established in 2007, PolitiFact was started and run by independent journalists. The PolitiFact team is owned by a non-profit organisation Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

Snopes: Started in 1994, Snopes works as an independent publication owned by the Snopes Media Group. It is one of the oldest fact-checking site online. 

The Washington Post Fact Checker: This was developed by the Washington Post in the form of a special section of the newspaper devoted to all about fact-checking.   

WHY FACT-CHECKING IS NEEDED

To stop the spread of Fake News

Fake news can be influential and can make people change their opinion based on that news. Fact-checking will make us responsible towards what we are consuming and believing. This is important to stop the potentially harmful propaganda spread by misinformation.

Collaboration of Masses and Professionals at Large Scale

Fact-checking professionals are required the help of masses because the internet world is so widely spread and there are multiple ways of information dissemination happening these days. You must be aware of the information you consume, the better your awareness, better you stop the spread of misinformation.

To Stop the engagement with the fake news

This day is important for you to be aware that every moment you are being targeted with corrupted agenda news and you must prevent yourself and people around you to get engaged with such news and encourage people to go for fact-checks before get swayed by any misinformation.

Let us all observe this day to take a pledge to stop fake news and misinformation and make this world well equipped with the facts.