verificarlo

Verificarlo is a software framework designed to assist individuals and organizations in verifying information and claims across digital sources. The project provides a modular toolset that supports compiling, organizing, and reviewing evidence, with an emphasis on traceability and reproducibility. It is designed to be language-agnostic and offers bindings for several languages, including Python, JavaScript, and Go.

Core components include a verifier engine that matches statements to cited sources, a metadata extractor that collects provenance from sources, a URL health and authenticity checker, and a provenance ledger that records the workflow from data intake to the final report. The framework supports common facts-checking workflows, collaboration features, and output formats such as structured JSON reports and human-readable PDFs.

History and development: Verificarlo originated in a collaboration among journalism and academic institutions in 2022, with an initial public release in 2023. The project is hosted as an open-source repository under a permissive license, and it invites contributions through a modular plugin architecture. Its governance emphasizes transparency in verification processes.

Usage and impact: Newsrooms, researchers, and academic fact-checkers use Verificarlo to organize verification tasks, automate cross-source comparisons, and generate auditable reports. It has been integrated with external data registries and fact-checking platforms. Responses to the project have been mixed, highlighting the importance of high-quality source data and the need for human oversight of automated checks.

See also: fact-checking, provenance, data verification, verification workflows, ClaimReview.