Maldita.es selected by the Facebook Journalism Project in its first accelerator for fact-checking organizations

This challenge consists of participating in a 10-week training program to design, build and improve their community models. For this, Maldita.es and the participants will learn from experts and collaborate with strategies, sharing their experiences in business and community models.

The selected media are:

• Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism (Latvia)
• Poligrafo (Portugal) 
• Faktograf (Croatia)
• Ecuador Chequea (Ecuador)
• Chequeado (Argentina)
• Pesa Check (Kenya)
• Fatabyyano (Jordan)
• NewsMobile (India)
• BOOM (India)
• Vera Files (Philippines) 
• Taiwan FactCheck Center (Taiwan) 
• Politifact (United States)
• The Dispatch (United States)

The Facebook Accelerator program was launched in 2018 as a global-level training to help local media create sustainable business models.

This is the first time Facebook has created a program specifically for fact-checking organizations, which are part of its external fact-checking program. Since 2018, more than 175 media outlets have participated in the accelerator.

The program is run by Blue Engine Collaborative, a consortium of consultants and advisors founded by Tim Griggs, a former executive at The New York Times and Texas Tribune, to drive digital audience and revenue growth

About Maldita.es and Facebook’s external verification program

Since 2019, Maldita.es has had an agreement with Facebook to combat disinformation on its platform. As part of the external fact-checking program, Maldita.es uses its methodology, while maintaining independence and rigor, to verify news, images and videos published on Facebook.

Facebook’s external fect-checking program was created in 2016 to combat hoaxes circulating on the platform. Since then, the program has been implemented in more than thirty countries in collaboration with fact-checking teams certified by the International Fact- Checking Network, the international alliance of independent fact-checkers of which Maldita.es is a member.