Background: The International Fact-Checking Network insists that its verified signatories inform their audiences of their option to report to the IFCN failures to uphold IFCN standards. Zebra Fact Check has taken advantage of that option dozens of times as a test of the IFCN’s accountability system and we’ve found it severely lacking.
The IFCN does not now inform the complainant whether it will forward the complaint to the assessor who reviews an organization’s compliance with IFCN standards. The IFCN doesn’t even publish any regular report providing transparency about its accountability system. We have two, at most, “annual transparency reports” from the IFCN since that publication was announced in 2020.’
The IFCN, likely in response to our efforts to hold the IFCN accountable, has instituted a limit of three complaints per year per complainant, ostensibly to reduce abuse of the system.
On May 29, 2026 Zebra Fact Check sent a formal complaint about PolitiFact to the International Fact-Checking Network. We noted PolitiFact had altered a transcript, resulting in a misleading narrative about President Trump. The elision failed to follow AP style, giving readers no clue at all PolitiFact had removed much of Mr. Trump’s answers to the journalist’s question, in effect changing his answer.
Altering the context contributed to PolitiFact treating Trump’s claim that Thom Tillis “no longer a Senator” by hiding an obvious clue that Trump was not making a literal claim.
In accord with IFCN guidelines, our email complaint identified the problems and their correspondence with two parts of Code of Principles the IFCN identifies as hard requirements. It included attachments showing two different version of the relevant transcript as well as .pdf images of emails showing our effort to bring the issue to PolitiFact’s attention and PolitiFact’s standard acknowledgment of receipt. The text of our email includes a hyperlink to a page at the Internet Archive Wayback machine tracking changes to the PolitiFact fact check, showing no apparent attempt to correct the problems.