Factcheck Lab is an independent project team set up by the Culture & Media Education Foundation, a non-partisan charity with tax exemption status in Hong Kong. This information is stated on the "About Us" page of Factcheck Lab's website: https://www.factchecklab.org/about-us/.

All the necessary information is provided on the "About" page showing that Factcheck Lab is a distinct, independent project within a legally registered Hong Kong Charity. The page includes links to the parent organization and information about charity and tax exempt status.

1. Factcheck Lab was started on May 2020, its first fact-check was published on June 2020. The objectives of Factcheck Lab are to counter the spread of mis / disinformation by conducting fact-checks on widely circulated information distributed online in order to safeguard the online public sphere.
2. There are 12 members in the Factcheck Lab team, including 1 full-time executive editor (who conducts fact-checks and drafts the fact-check reports), 9 voluntary editorial team members (who reviews and edits the fact-check) 2 voluntary IT consultants. The project team is supported by a full-time administrative manager from the Culture & Media Education Foundation.
3. The Fact-check Lab project team is set up for researching information flow online, identifying mis/disinformation, conducting fact-checks and publishing fact-check reports regularly.
4. Publishing fact-check reports on a regular basis, organizing media literacy workshops and networking with similar initiatives in Hong Kong and beyond.

All of the required information is available on the website. Factcheck Lab was set up for the purpose of fact-checking, and for educating the Hong Kong public about the sources of information related to current events that people encounter through a range of online platforms and sources. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gmjFTfBWH2GP4OrTR_tFDdVAuvh4pAULe2K52_cAsQU/

FactCheck Lab originally applied late November 2020. Starting June 2020, published at least 4 fact checks per month through December 2020, sometimes more, with the exception of October when they published only 2. In 2021 they have averaged 3 per month. However given that the assessment is occurring 9 months after application, which is a lengthy wait period for assessment, which for many such fact-check startup organizations is a key step toward securing significant funding, it is to be expected that their staff would have difficulty maintaining the pace into mid-2021 as they waited for assessment to occur.                                                                                   

Factcheck Lab has published 47 fact checks from its launch in mid-2020 until July 2021. I can confirm that nearly all of the fact checks relate to news with significant implications for the lives and livelihoods of people in Hong Kong. Sources range from official social media pages of major news organizations, accounts of politicians and public figures well known in Hong Kong, and other social media accounts with large numbers of followers in Hong Kong. One third pertain to public health with most focused on COVID-19 related topics. Roughly half cover a mix of topics related to local politics, justice and enforcement of Hong Kong's new national security law, and international affairs including developments related to U.S. politics and elections and U.S.-China relations, as well as China's relations with other major countries, the outcomes of which have direct implications for the people of Hong Kong.

Factcheck Lab is fully funded by the Culture & Media Education Foundation (CMEF), which is a charitable organization and is exempt from tax under section 88 of the Inland Revenue Ordinance. The foundation has no affiliation with any government and political party. Since the foundation’s establishment in 2014, its major funding sources are Hong Kong and foreign NGOs.

CMEF has applied and received funding from the Wan Chai District Council for community involvement for school talks and community events for the foundation’s public outreach work. While the district council’s funding comes from the Hong Kong government’s Home Affair Office, the grant had never been used in the Factcheck Lab project whose funding is sourced from Hong Kong In-Media and Open Society Foundation.

I can confirm that the applicant is not controlled by any state, political party, or politician. Factcheck Lab's parent organization is affiliated with independent non-profit media organizations such as InMedia HK, a non-profit citizen journalism platform that has existed in Hong Kong for over 15 years. 

As stated above, Factcheck Lab does not receive any funding or support from foreign as well as local state or political actors over the previous financial year.

The applicant has clarified that Hong Kong district council funding to its parent organization has not been used to fund FactCheck Lab, whose grants come from InMedia HK and Open Society Foundations which has strict requirements that grantees must not engage in political lobbying.

1. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200624/
2. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200703/
3. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200709/
4. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200722/
5. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200803/
6. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200813/
7. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200820/
8. https://www.factchecklab.org/20201012/
9. https://www.factchecklab.org/20201118/
10. https://www.factchecklab.org/20201123/

The above 10 fact-checks include claims shared by people with various political orientations in Hong Kong, like those who are mainly against the Chinese Communist Party (1,6), who supports the Hong Kong government/police and against the protesters (3,5,8), and who are skeptical to the Hong Kong government (and CCP) (2,4,7). Also there are two claims about the U.S. presidential election (9,10), both of them are skeptical to the election results, Factcheck Lab found that one claim is partially true (with some caveats) and another is without evidence and misleading.

In all of these fact-checks, Factcheck Lab use the similar tools and methods to fact-check, for example, we checked whether the claims are (partly) based on outdated information and used Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to confirm it (2,5), we also looked at the details of data (4,8,9,10) and checked original videos relevant to some of the claims (1,3).

For every fact-check, we looked at the evidence provided in those claims first, and checked if those evidence were credible, correctly interpreted and supported those claims. We also checked relevant information, including judgements, research papers, data and government documents, to have a better understanding of the context of such claims. We compared all these evidence to reach our conclusions.

The applicant fact-checks using the same rigorous standards of evidence and judgement for equivalent claims regardless of who made the claim. Fact-checks cover claims from media organizations, social media pages of media personalities, and widely circulated social media postings from across the spectrum of views: some aligned with mainland China's CCP government, some from pro-democracy pro-protest sources, and some from organizations that have a long track record of being anti-CCP. Each fact-check is approached with the same rigor and detailed sourcing, including in many cases the detailed forensic analysis of video and photographs.

https://www.factchecklab.org/methodology/

Scope and methodology are easily understandable and public-facing. It clearly explains the scope of sources that they draw from, how they select claims to check, how they consider the reach and importance of the claims they verify, what types of claims they focus on fact-checking, the data verification process, and how they ensure independence during the fact-checking and verification process itself. 

 Factcheck Lab explains the background of the sources which are used in their fact-checks, and discloses any interests they may have.

Factcheck Lab's fact checks are very clinical in tone and consistent in style. They contain no editorializing or advocacy.

https://www.factchecklab.org/about-us/

The applicant publicly explains its non-partisanship policy on its website and makes clear that staff and contributors cannot work for any government entity or be member of a political party.

Factcheck Lab offers very detailed sourcing and evidence to support its analysis in every posting that I have randomly selected to review.

Factcheck Lab prioritizes primary sources and uses multiple secondary sources when primary sources are not available.

Factcheck Lab has been very meticulous and detailed in its use of sources in all postings that I have reviewed at random.

Factcheck Lab clearly describes the background and affiliations of its sources in the postings I randomly reviewed.

Factcheck Lab is a fact-checking team founded by the Culture & Media Education Foundation, a Charitable entity with tax exemption status in Hong Kong. The status requires the organization to devote non-political works such as education, research, and promotion of culture.

Factcheck Lab is an independent project within CMEF and the project is autonomously run by a 10-member editorial team which consists of independent journalists, scholars with journalism background and editors from the project’s partner media outlets including Stand News, inmediahk.net, Citizen News and Global Voices. All our partner news sites are non-partisan and have a professional newsroom in place.

This relationship between Factcheck Lab and CMEF is shown on CMEF's website as well as Factchekc Lab's website.

Factcheck Lab provides ample evidence of its status as an independent unit of a Hong Kong non-profit charity which funds other independent media and educational projects. The relationship between the two is clearly shown on both the applicant's website and the host organization's website. 

https://www.factchecklab.org/about-us/

Factcheck lab has clear information about its ownership and funding on its "about us" page. 

https://www.factchecklab.org/about-us/

Factcheck Lab has clearly mapped out organizational structure and editorial authorities.

https://www.factchecklab.org/about-us/

The "About Us" page is updated and every editorial member has a professional biography on the website.

The list of personnel on the "about us" page includes a link to the executive editor's bio. For all others, their names are listed plus one primary affiliation (eg., professor at x university y department, editor at xyz news website, etc. - all of them organizations and positions relevant to being able to do this type of fact checking work). But no bios for people other than the executive editor are provided.

The list of personnel on the "about us" page includes links to the bios of all staff and contributors. 

https://www.factchecklab.org/contact-us/

There is a page with clear information about multiple ways to contact Factcheck Lab.

https://www.factchecklab.org/methodology/

Information about the methodology is clear and detailed on the methodology page. 

In the fact-checks I reviewed it is made clear why it is in the public interest to fact-check each claim. 

When relevant evidence to support the claim (or closely related claims) exists, they include it.

In the fact-checks I reviewed at random, the same rigor is applied to the analysis regardless of where the maker of the claim stands on the political spectrum in Hong Kong or elsewhere (Taiwan, mainland China, U.S., UK, etc).

Hong Kong's political situation and the public interest relevance of claims made in Chinese using (or distorting or deliberately mis-translating or mis-construing) English sources can make contacting the makers of claims especially challenging.

On the top of website there is a link to the "Contact Us" page, which explicitly tells user can send in claims to check, and we will only fact-check factual claims. The link of the "Contact Us" page is: https://www.factchecklab.org/contact-us/.

The contact page includes the necessary information.

https://www.factchecklab.org/methodology/

https://www.factchecklab.org/correction-policy/

The corrections policy is at the very bottom of the methodology page, so readers may not find it unless they know where to look and scroll all the way to the bottom. It needs to be more visible, ideally with its own URL so that it can be linked and referred to directly, especially from the contact page. 

The corrections policy can easily be found from a link at the top of the website, in addition to the "contact us" page and at the bottom of the "methodology" page.  

Now there is an independent page for the correction policy, and it is shown on the top of the website and can be seen on every page (including all fact-checking reports).

Suggested change: link to the contact page in the corrections policy, and link directly to the corrections policy from the contact page. The corrections policy listed on the methodology page does state a commitment to accept appeals openly and transparently. However the corrections policy section of the methodology page does not link explicitly to the contact page, and the contact page does not link directly to the corrections policy (which is currently a section at the bottom of the methodology page without its own URL). The contact page does contain helpful information about the scope of the organization's fact checking, and what does not justify response or fact checking, although that information is not included in the corrections policy itself. While the contact page does link back to the methodology page, the corrections policy is at the bottom of that page, with no way to link to it directly, so it might be hard for readers to find the specific information about corrections and error reporting. 

The corrections policy is clear about what it does and does not cover and how complaints are handled, and that process is reflected in the corrections I have seen in a number of the fact check posts. 

In the following two fact-checks, some mistakes pointed out by our readers are corrected, and the history of corrections are shown at the bottom of the articles:

1. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200630/
2. https://www.factchecklab.org/20200716/

Fact checks that have been updated or corrected include a list of updates and corrections at the bottom of the post. Factcheck Lab might want to consider adding some sort of tag or notice at the top of posts that have been updated or corrected, or otherwise find a way to highlight the fact that there is new information contained in a post that is not the newest on the website.

Factcheck Lab is not an existing signatory. We will add this page once our application is accepted.

Factcheck Lab is not an existing signatory. 

Factcheck Lab is not the fact-checking unit of a media company.

The host organization is not a media company so therefore this particular sub-criteria does not apply.