A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VERIFICATION/FACT-CHECKING ORGANIZATONS IN TURKEY: dogrulukpayi.com and teyit.org

OpenAlex Türkçe

The developments in Internet and new communication technologies have many negative impacts besides its positive impacts. In recent years, the most widely articulated one of these negative impacts is the notion of “fake news”. The notions of “fake news,” “post–truth era” and “echo chambers” are increasingly being topical issues. Fake news, the most important indicator of the post-truth era, is mostly circulated and spread through social networks. Researchers are scrutinizing the role of especially Twitter and Facebook algorithms in spread of fake news. If the solution of this problem that emerged in digital environment will be found again in the same platform, development and efficiency of fact-checking organizations is gaining importance. The two prominent fact-checking organizations in Turkey are “teyit.org” and “dogrulukpayi.com”. The scope of the research is comparison of the structures and working manners of these two fact-checking organizations. To conduct the research, semi–structured in-depth interviews were done with authorized team members of the organizations. Doğruluk Payı and Teyit have similarities on human resources, financing and organization; however, they exhibit differences on the scope and process of verification/fact-checking and assessment. Both organizations do not require being a journalist or having a journalistic education to be a verifier/fact-checker and operate with a multi-disciplinary staff. According to interviewees, one of the most difficult thing about being a verifier/fact-checker in Turkey is excessive polarization. Another difficulty about the fact-checking of politicians’ statements is that these statements are mostly value-based. Keywords: Post-truth, fake news, fact-checking, verification, media.