Open-Source Practices Against Information Manipulation: Experiences and Challenges of the Cofacts Crowd-Sourced Fact-Checking Platform

Democracy relies on citizens' collective intelligence, a foundation now severely undermined by information manipulation.

Since 2016, Cofacts has built an open-source, wiki-like collaborative fact-checking platform. It empowers citizens who care about disinformation to write responses, directly communicating with users who receive hoaxes in closed messaging apps.

Over the past decade, handling disinformation has been inherently challenging: the same hoax often mutates across text, screenshots, and videos. The recent popularization of generative AI has made the verification exceptionally difficult. Furthermore, our offline workshops highlight a critical bottleneck in crowd-sourced defense: despite widespread anxiety over disinformation, the barrier to entry remains dauntingly high. The fear of making mistakes often paralyzes volunteers, leading to severe self-doubt and rapid burnout.

In the face of asymmetric information warfare, AI is both a challenge and an opportunity. This session will walk through the pain points experienced by community fact-checkers and Cofacts' journey in building open-source technological solutions. We will explore how to position AI as an "assistant" rather than a "replacement"—ensuring that human agency is preserved while guiding citizens to overcome verification barriers and collectively join the movement to defend against information manipulation.