IRS 990 filings and foundation grant databases reveal the institutional donors behind the organizations that determine what information Americans are allowed to see on social media. The fact-checkers have funders. The funders have agendas. And the public has a right to know who’s paying for the “truth.”
The Money Behind the Labels
When a social media post receives a “fact-check” label — reducing its reach, flagging it as misleading, or outright suppressing it — the organization that made that determination was funded by someone. The fact-checking industry presents itself as a neutral arbiter of truth. Its funding sources suggest a more complicated picture.
PolitiFact, one of the most widely cited fact-checking organizations, discloses key funders including the Democracy Fund ($250,000 to expand fact-checking into new states), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($126,650 for global health claims work), the Knight Foundation ($200,000 to train Florida news organizations), and Craig Newmark Philanthropies ($25,000 in sponsorship).
FactCheck.org has received $323,745 from Facebook (now Meta) to debunk viral deceptions on social media, $100,000 from Google for COVID-19 coverage, and multiple grants of $100,000 to $150,000 from the Stanton Foundation for fellowship programs and general operations.
The Platform Dependency
The most significant funding relationship in the fact-checking industry has been the partnership between Meta and its network of third-party fact-checkers. For years, Meta paid fact-checking organizations to review content flagged on Facebook and Instagram, applying labels that reduced the reach of posts deemed false or misleading.
In January 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would end its fact-checking program entirely, blaming fact-checkers for “political bias” and stating they had “destroyed trust.” Meta announced a transition to a Community Notes approach similar to X (formerly Twitter), where users rather than professional organizations would evaluate content accuracy.
Google followed by ending funding for local fact-checking operations, including its support for AAP FactCheck in Australia. The platform-funded fact-checking model that had sustained the industry for years was collapsing.
The Foundation Layer
Behind the platform money lies a deeper layer of foundation funding. The Democracy Fund, funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, has been a significant supporter of both fact-checking organizations and media accountability projects. The Knight Foundation, with its $2.4 billion endowment, funds journalism and media initiatives that frequently intersect with fact-checking operations.
These foundations have their own policy perspectives — perspectives that inevitably influence which topics receive fact-checking attention, which claims are prioritized for review, and which institutional narratives are treated as settled truth vs. legitimate debate. A foundation that funds climate research and climate fact-checking has a structural incentive to ensure that its fact-checking investments produce results consistent with its research investments.
The Accountability Inversion
The core problem with the fact-checking industry is not that it makes mistakes — all organizations do. It’s that the organizations claiming authority to adjudicate truth are themselves unaccountable to the public they claim to serve. Their funding sources create potential conflicts of interest. Their editorial decisions are opaque. Their correction processes are inconsistent. And their most consequential action — suppressing the reach of content on social media platforms used by billions — carries no mechanism for appeal or accountability.
Transparency about funding is a minimum standard for any organization that claims to be a neutral arbiter. The fact-checkers who police everyone else’s claims should welcome the same scrutiny they apply to others. That they often resist it tells you something about the gap between their stated mission and their institutional incentives.
Eduardo Bacci is an investigative journalist at The Investigative Journal. Data sources include ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, foundation grant databases, PolitiFact and FactCheck.org donor disclosures, and Meta corporate announcements.