TOKYO -- The global fact-checking community is at a crossroads as the number of organizations tracking and correcting misinformation declines due to financial strain and increasing hostility from governments and politicians under scrutiny.
In the 2000s, there were fewer than 20 fact-checking entities globally. However, their numbers began to rise in 2016, a year marked by the Brexit referendum in Britain and the U.S. presidential election won by Donald Trump. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 further accelerated this trend, as the demand for verifying online information surged.
