Logically Fact-Check is a distinct team within the Editorial division of Logically set up exclusively for the purposes of fact-checking. TheLogically Ltd. is a private company, trading under the name ‘Logically’ (see answer 1.2 for details on how the Fact-Checking team is structured and how it relates to the rest of the Editorial division).

Logically operates three domains, .co.uk .in and .ai directed towards British, Indian and American audiences respectively; all information required by the IFCN is strictly mirrored across all three domains. Most of the information required by the IFCN is found at www.logically.ai/factchecks ; www.logically.ai/about and www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency .

We show the following statement on our website at www.logically.ai/factchecks

“Logically is a private enterprise that is funded by its founder, Lyric Jain. The source of these funds includes personal savings and family businesses (Eliza Tinsley Ltd. and Avocet Hardware Ltd.)”

Our ‘Transparency’ page ( www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency ) contains a more detailed statement about how Logically is funded, and also contains details on how the Fact-Checking team is related to the rest of Logically (see 1.2). Details of our motivations, structure and purpose, as well as statements concerning our editorial independence can also be found there, and on our ‘About’ page ( www.logically.ai/about ) (see 2.5 for more on this).

Logically Fact-Check is a dedicated fact-checking team within the editorial division of Logically Ltd, a private company registered with Companies House in the UK https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10850644 It was first registered on July 5, 2017. Its financial and other statuary reporting is up-to-date https://go.aws/2BkjlIH 

Logically operates 3 domains aimed at British, United States and Indian audiences but relevant info about the company and its fact-checking protocols are mirrored across all their domains

1) Logically was founded in July 2017 by CEO Lyric Jain to develop technologies and other resources to assist in the global effort to combat misinformation and improve civic discourse.

2) At time of writing, Logically employs 74 staff across three countries (India, UK and Germany). Of these, 32 number work in technology research, product development and related areas, 10 work in marketing, business development and administrative roles, and 32 work in the editorial division, of which 27 are dedicated fact-checkers.

The Editorial Division of Logically incorporates all operations involving fact-checking, journalism, investigations, policy research and other published outputs.

Editorial employs 27 dedicated fact-checkers, which includes: 19 researchers, who carry out the majority of the research involved in our fact-checks, 2 Moderators who are responsible for copy-editing and quality assurance, and 4 supervisors who are responsible for ensuring high editorial standards and manage the day-to-day operations of the fact-checking team. Our supervisors report to our two senior fact-checkers, who in consultation with the Senior Editor deal with any potentially contentious editorial decisions, and address any complaints or necessary corrections. Our senior fact checkers report directly to the senior editor. The senior editor is ultimately responsible for editorial policy and standards throughout the editorial division, including the fact-checking team.

Logically Editorial currently employs 5 people who are not dedicated fact-checkers. They are, the Senior Editor, two Contributing Editors and two Disinformation Researchers.

3) Logically works in a number of areas, all related to combating misinformation, including:

i) Providing a bespoke fact-checking service for users of our app and for B2B clients

ii) Developing technologies including platforms, consumer software, AI and machine learning algorithms to assist fact-checkers in their work, and to provide tools to individual users, media outlets, businesses and governments to prevent and address problems caused by information disorders

iii) Publishing journalistic content, educational resources and comment and opinion pieces in our areas of interest and expertise (including news and media literacy, fact-checking, information disorders, media criticism and relevant technologies)

iv) Conducting and publishing policy research and investigations in our areas of interest

4) Over the coming year, our goals are:

i) To develop a sustainable, responsible and ethical business model which allows for high quality fact-checks to be conducted at scale to serve the needs of media institutions, businesses, individuals and the world at large.

ii) To continue to develop technologies and systems to support ourselves, and the wider fact-checking community in our work

iii) To partner with non-partisan media, civic and governmental organisations to develop ways to use fact-checking to combat the effects of misinformation

iv) To continue to grow our US facing fact-checking operation in anticipation of the 2020 general election

v) To continue to work with, support and critically engage with the community of journalists, NGOs, businesses and civic groups who work in good faith to fight misinformation

1) Logically was founded in 2017 with the intention of developing technological and other resources "to assist in the global effort to combat misinformation and improve civic discourse." 

2) It employs 74 staff across three countries. Of these staff, 27 dedicated fact-checkers, of whom 19 are researchers who do most of the fact-checking research It also has two moderators responsible for editing and "quality assurance" and four supervisors who oversee the day-to-day operations of the fact-checking team. The researchers report to two senior fact-checkers, who in turn report to a senior editor.

3) Logically works in a variety of areas all related to combating disinformation. These include: 

offering bespoke fact-checking services to users of its app and to B2B clients; 

developing technology to combat mis- and disinformation  to a variety of clients, ranging from individuals  to newsrooms and governments; 

publishing journalistic content, educational resources and comment and opinion pieces in Logically's "areas of interest and expertise (including news and media literacy, fact-checking, information disorders, media criticism, and relevant technologies);

conducting and publishing policy research and investigations in its areas of interest

Logically says it has several goals for the year ahead, including:

* Developing "a sustainable, responsible and ethical business model which allows for high-quality fact-checks to be conducted at scale to serve the needs of media institutions, businesses, individuals and the world at large."

* Continuing to develop fact-checking technologies and systems;

* Partnering with non-partisan media, civic and governmental organisations to combat the effects of misinformation;

* Growing its  US fact-checking operation in anticipation of the 2020 general election

Logically handles a very large volume of fact-checks, mostly submitted through users of our app (some are also submitted internally through our in-house dashboard).

Because of this, it is impractical to provide you with an assessment of each of our claims and whether they meet the IFCN’s guidance on what constitutes the public interest. We have, however, provided a complete list of all our fact checks conducted between February 1st and May 1st 2020, together with a separate list of all the fact checks which we have published on our website within the same period, and a further list of 28 fact-checks which we have compiled as a broad representation of the scope of topics which we cover.

All claims which fall within our scope and are otherwise suitable to be checked (please see section 2.2 for details on our criteria for claim validity) are investigated by our fact-checkers and a verdict shared with the user who submitted the claim. All claims which were completed between the dates of February 1st 2020 and May 1st 2020 are listed in the spreadsheet 'Logically_Checks_Complete' below, along with the requested information.

We publish a selection of completed claims on our website's fact-check library at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library , and we also publish a list of highlighted fact-checks, rotated daily (see section 2.2 for details on how we select which claims are published in our library, and for how we select highlighted claims). We have attached a spreadsheet featuring all those fact-checks which were published on our website between February 1st and May 1st 2020, titled ‘Logically_Checks_Library’.

For your convenience, we have also attached a selection of 28 fact-checks from those which were published on our web site during the period from March 1st to May 1st 2020, with all the information requested (including whether we judge the claim to be in the public interest’) in the spreadsheet titled 'Logically_Checks_Selection'.

The selection of topics across our submission shows that the vast majority of both the claims we check and the claims we publish fall under the IFCN's definition of being in the public interest. COVID-19 is by far the most common topic we have addressed over the last three months, with a majority of the remainder comprising substantive political issues or potentially inflammatory rumours. Because Logically checks every valid claim submitted by a user, we have limited discretion over the range of topics we research; we generally see roughly 5-10% of submitted claims which wouldn't satisfy the IFCN definition of 'in the public interest', on topics such as history, entertainment, science and trivia.

NB: We automatically affix the a statement concerning COVID-19 and add the WHO as a source to the end of any fact-check which is tagged as related COVID-19.

We had a little difficulty in uploading the CSV files in a way which preserved the necessary formatting. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have a problem using the files.

I am satisfied that Logically meets the criteria for this section with regard to the criteria for volume and diversity in fact-checks. The topics and issues they fact-check are wide and varied

I am satisfied that the necessary requirements for compliance have been met

Logically currently has no commercial or financial relationships with any state, politician or political party.

Logically has worked with several non-partisan governmental organisations. Below is an exhaustive list of all the work we have done with any governmental or government-adjacent organisation; details of some of these projects are also listed on our website ( https://www.logically.ai/election ) and linked to from our 'About Us' page.

During the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2019, Logically partnered with Maharashtra Cyber Cell to detect and track election misinformation. The aim of this initiative was to stop the spread of misinformation during the election and mitigate the risks of any consequent civil unrest. Logically also dedicated fact checkers and verification experts to form a collaborative reporting mechanism. Logically set up a war-room in Maharashtra Cyber Office at World Trade Center, Mumbai that formed the central hub of all detection, tracking and reporting activities. This project was conducted on a pro bono basis, and Logically did not receive any compensation for its work.

In 2020, we have partnered with Mysore police, Karnatka, to provide the police with fact-checks concerning COVID-19 and of interest to the citizens of Mysore. Four of our fact-checkers have been seconded to the project, gathering fact-checkable material relevant to COVID-19 and Mysore, and conducting fact-checks. These are forwarded as a weekly report to Mysore police, to inform them of misinformation which may be circulating in the area. Logically is also conducting this work on a pro bono basis and is not receiving any compensation.

In early 2020 Logically entered the Civic Innovation Challenge, a competition organised by the office of the Mayor of London which encouraged co-operation between public sector institutions and private sector startups to solve pressing social problems; the prize for the winner in each category was £40,000 to develop their proposed solution. Logically worked in partnership with the Metropolitan Police to develop FlagIt; an app and browser extension designed to encourage and facilitate high quality reports of online extremist material, particularly targeted at users of smaller platforms which are not well equipped to police their own content. Logically was a finalist in the Civic Innovation Challenge, but was not awarded any money.

Logically has and will continue to apply for funding offered by groups including responsible and non-partisan state, governmental and supranational bodies, to participate in relevant schemes, competitions and programs which may be supported by non-partisan governmental actors, and to offer its services (either on a commercial or a pro bono basis) to responsible and non-partisan state and governmental bodies.

Logically has to date received no financial compensation or any form of financial support from any foreign or local state or political actors. 

"Logically has to date received no financial compensation or any form of financial support from any foreign or local state or political actors," it states in this application

Logically has worked on some interesting projects around elections on a pro-bono basis. (some projects are listed here https://www.logically.ai/election which is reached via its About page https://www.logically.co.uk/about Those who benefited from these projects include unpaid work on the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2019 to detect and track election misinformation.

They also have an arrangement with Mysore police to provide COVID-19-related fact-checks. Four Logically fact-checkers have been seconded to the project, and a weekly report is supplied to Mysore police informing them of misinformation circulating in the area.

Although we do not currently receive any funding from any governmental source, we do have and seek to develop further working relationships with responsible and non-partisan state and government actors, including potential commercial relationships.

Because of the possibility of such commercial relationships arising in the future, we have current systems in place to ensure proper editorial independence as if those relationships already existed.

We publish details of the way that Logically's editorial division is organised in relation to the rest of the company on our Transparency page https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency as well as the steps we currently take to ensure that proper editorial independence cannot be compromised by commercial interests of any kind, especially any potential governmental funding sources.

While Logically currently does not receive funding from governmental sources, it does not rule this out in the future.

In its application, it states: "Although we do not currently receive any funding from any governmental source, we do have - and seek to develop - further working relationships with responsible and non-partisan state and government actors, including potential commercial relationships.

Because of the possibility of such commercial relationships arising in the future, we have current systems in place to ensure proper editorial independence as if those relationships already existed."

Logically says it has measures in place to "ensure that proper editorial independence cannot be compromised by commercial interests of any kind, especially any potential governmental funding sources."

Details can be found here:  https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency

Of particular relevance is this, from the transparency section: "At Logically we work hard to ensure that all our work is free from bias and partisan interest and that our personal political views never influence our judgments. All of our editorial staff sign a political activity policy, and our editorial team is strictly firewalled from any potential conflicts of interest within the company."

The way Logically is set up makes it extremely difficult for systematic biases to emerge in our fact-checks. We have very limited editorial discretion in the claims we check, since they are almost entirely submitted by users of our app. Our fact-checking network is also widely distributed (between two offices in India and two in the UK), with a large team of diverse backgrounds and political persuasions. As such, it would be extremely difficult for us to intentionally or negligently unduly focus our fact-checks on any one side, or to systematically favour one side or another in our reasoning or judgements.

Below is a list of ten fact-checks which we believe illustrate our non-partisanship. We have summarised the judgement in each case, who the overall political beneficiary or target of the claim was, and whether our judgement favoured them or not. We also provide a short statement concerning the evidence brought to bear in each case.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/cf48ea4d  - This claim was a criticism of President Trump and was judged as ‘Misleading’, meaning that the judgement overall favours Trump.

This claim concerned whether Trump’s comments on disinfectants and COVID-19 were responsible for increased calls to US Poison control. We referenced official statements and reputable public health and news organisations, and established that there had been a steady rise in such calls prior to Trump’s statements, and so a direct causal link could not be established.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/de74349b - This claim is a criticism of Trump, but was found to be False, meaning that the judgement favours Trump overall.

This claim was simple to refute: a simple reference to newspaper reports and official statements made it clear that the idea that stimulus checks needed to be repaid was unfounded.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/904859b4 - This claim constitutes a criticism of former President Obama and was judged to be ‘True’

Judging this claim involved following a long-term trail of newspaper reports detailing contracts between a medical manufacturing company and the US government. It was, however, clear that the contract undertaken by the Obama administration had not been fulfilled.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/af84cb5e - This claim was a criticism of Obama, but was judged ‘Misleading’, meaning that the judgement overall favours Obama.

This is a claim concerning the Wuhan institute of Virology, which was partly funded by the US government during the Obama administration, but we judged the claim that the US government had funded the lab where COVID-19 originated as misleading because a) there is no evidence that the virus originated from that lab, b) that the funding was at all connected to any work related to COVID-19 and b) the US was just one of many contributors to this work.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/a2cca6b8

- This claim constitutes a criticism of Obama, but was judged to be False, meaning that the judgement favours Obama

This claim involved the verification (or in this case debunking) of a photograph, which purports to show Obama awarding Harvey Weinstein the presidential medal of freedom. It was a simple matter to find the public White House records showing that Weinstein had never received such an honour, and to pinpoint areas of the photograph which had been doctored.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/7bef2605 - This claim is politically beneficial to Joe Biden and was found to be True

This claim relates to who, at the time of the US presidential primary, had a larger share of the BAME vote between either Sanders or Biden, and we discovered that while Sanders did have a larger share of Latinx voters than Biden, Biden’s overall share of the non-white democratic primary vote was larger than Sanders’.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/0a281902 - This claim is politically beneficial to PM Narendra Modi and is judged as ‘True’.

This claim simply involved confirming that the reporting of a reliable (morning consult) poll was accurate, in which Modi had been shown to have the strongest approval ratings in terms of handling the pandemic.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/25bb1aab - This claim constitutes a criticism of Modi and was found to be True.

This claim concerns the representation of Modi in newspapers around the world, and was found to be true. This, again, was a relatively easy claim to check, since the substance of the claim involved the way newspapers had reported on Modi, and so we were able to simply check up on the reporting.

Having examined the supplied links, as well as other fact-checks published by Logically, I am satisfied that they meet the criteria for this requirement

Useful background:

This is from Logically's application: "The way Logically is set up makes it extremely difficult for systematic biases to emerge in our fact-checks. We have very limited editorial discretion in the claims we check since they are almost entirely submitted by users of our app. Our fact-checking network is also widely distributed (between two offices in India and two in the UK), with a large team of diverse backgrounds and political persuasions. As such, it would be extremely difficult for us to intentionally or negligently unduly focus our fact-checks on any one side, or to systematically favour one side or another in our reasoning or judgments."

How we fact-check, from Logially's FAQs: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks

"Once we receive your request, it’s assigned to one of our fact-checking team, who then begins to conduct research into the claim. They try to track the claim back to its origins, analyse its context and then find as many primary sources as possible to either support or refute it.

Once they have found enough evidence, they made a decision about how reliable they believe the claim is, and write up a report about their findings, as well as the path they followed to find their evidence. This becomes the fact check itself, and once it passes through several levels of oversight and is checked and double-checked, we send our findings on to you."

This from Logically's FAQ's on non-partisanship: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks 

"Our principal mission is to improve the quality of civic discourse and to give citizens the tools they need to critically analyse, engage with and participate in democratic political processes. We believe that it is both possible and desirable to be politically engaged without being prejudicial, to debate and disagree with honesty and integrity, and to demand the highest standards of courtesy, rationality and respect from political allies and opposition alike.

We believe that the best way to achieve this is by developing non-partisan, unbiased resources to establish what facts are beyond dispute, what positions can be reasonably held on the basis of those facts, and to give everybody the resources necessary to argue for what they believe without undermining our shared commitment to arguing on the basis of facts.

As employees of Logically, we understand that in order to play our part in establishing what is true and what is not, Logically must be trusted across the political spectrum. Furthermore, we understand that while being politically engaged is a civic duty, our role as an independent fact-checking organisation requires that our work be motivated by broad political and ethical considerations that transcend our partisan political interests.

As such, we undertake to ensure that all our work at Logically is free from bias and partisan interest, and that our personal political views will never influence our work; nor should our work ever permit reasonable suspicion of being unduly influenced by our own partisan or political views. Furthermore, we undertake to comport ourselves in our private lives and our online and other communications in ways that can never undermine the position of Logically as an unbiased, non-partisan organisation."

We publish information in the Methodology section of our Fact-Checking page ( www.logically.ai/factchecks ) on how we select claims to check (or more accurately in our case, under what conditions we reject claims submitted to us for checking), and how we select which claims to publish on our website.

Because we conduct a fact-check on any suitable claim submitted to us, there is no editorial discretion available to us concerning the quantity, topic or diversity of claims we check, nor of those we return to users. However, we do ensure that the fact-checks which we display as highlights, and in our fact-check library, meet appropriate standards of interest and fairness, as described in the information published on our website.

I am satisfied that Logislly meets the criteria for this section

Below from FAQs

How we choose claims [to fact-check] (from FAQs) https://www.logically.ai/factchecks 

Logically aims to publish an informative and useful judgment on any claim submitted to us by a user. Rarely, we will not be able to responsibly issue a judgment on a claim and may reject it.

Logically may reject a claim for the following reasons:

We can only check assertions or sentences which can be interpreted as assertions. An assertion is any sentence which aims to make somebody believe something to be true. If a submitted claim cannot be interpreted as an assertion, it will be rejected.

Sometimes an otherwise valid claim cannot be settled by any evidence to which we have access, nor could we have access to in the future. These will usually be claims which are entirely grounded in matters of taste, historical claims which no evidence can bear upon, or claims of a fundamentally moral or religious nature.

Very occasionally, it may be necessary for us to reject a claim because engaging with it at all would be irresponsible. This may be because we do not have the space, the expertise or the capacity to give sufficient context to a claim, which would make any judgment we could make ultimately unhelpful. We will also not engage with trolls, nor entertain harmful conspiracies, unless there is a clear journalistic case for publishing a rebuttal.

Only supervisors are authorised to reject claims, and all rejected claims are reported to senior fact-checkers to confirm that the rejection was appropriate. If you think your claim has been unfairly rejected, you can ask for us to look at it again through the app.

Claim Publication Policy

Any claim submitted by a user which is not rejected for the above reasons receives a judgment based on the best available evidence.

Our claims are awarded a star rating out of five by our supervising fact-checkers. Stars are awarded according to a fact-check’s interest, rigour, style, importance, and potential impact.

Any claim which is awarded four or five stars is published in the fact-check library on our website. Claims must be awarded at least three stars before they are returned to users.

We highlight a selection of published fact-checks in our highlight feed on our app and on our website. These are four or five-star claims, rotated daily, and selected for local interest (different highlight feeds are shown in different geographical areas).

How we conduct fact-checks (from FAQs)   https://www.logically.ai/factchecks

"Once we receive your request, it’s assigned to one of our fact-checking team, who then begins to conduct research into the claim. They try to track the claim back to its origins, analyse its context and then find as many primary sources as possible to either support or refute it.

Once they have found enough evidence, they made a decision about how reliable they believe the claim is, and write up a report about their findings, as well as the path they followed to find their evidence. This becomes the fact check itself, and once it passes through several levels of oversight and is checked and double-checked, we send our findings on to you."

Non-partisanship (from FAQs) https://www.logically.ai/factchecks 

Our principal mission is to improve the quality of civic discourse and to give citizens the tools they need to critically analyse, engage with and participate in democratic political processes. We believe that it is both possible and desirable to be politically engaged without being prejudicial, to debate and disagree with honesty and integrity, and to demand the highest standards of courtesy, rationality and respect from political allies and opposition alike.

We believe that the best way to achieve this is by developing non-partisan, unbiased resources to establish what facts are beyond dispute, what positions can be reasonably held on the basis of those facts, and to give everybody the resources necessary to argue for what they believe without undermining our shared commitment to arguing on the basis of facts.

As employees of Logically, we understand that in order to play our part in establishing what is true and what is not, Logically must be trusted across the political spectrum. Furthermore, we understand that while being politically engaged is a civic duty, our role as an independent fact-checking organisation requires that our work be motivated by broad political and ethical considerations which transcend our partisan political interests.

As such, we undertake to ensure that all our work at Logically is free from bias and partisan interest and that our personal political views will never influence our work; nor should our work ever permit reasonable suspicion of being unduly influenced by our own partisan or political views. Furthermore, we undertake to comport ourselves in our private lives and our online and other communications in ways which can never undermine the position of Logically as an unbiased, non-partisan organisation."

I have reviewed a random selection of fact-checks published by Logically on its website and I am satisfied that they meet the criteria

I have reviewed a random selection of fact-checks published by Logically on its website and I am satisfied that they meet the criteria

Our political activity and non-partisanship policy, which applies to all staff in the editorial division is published in summary on our fact check page, with further explanation of our ‘Transparency’ page https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency  We also attach a full version of our political activity policy, which is signed by all staff in the editorial division.

Breaches of our political activity policy are subject to disciplinary action and possible dismissal. Our ethics policy (also attached) also requires any staff to disclose any potential conflicts of financial or political interest in working on any project, and also to determine in advance of any project whether that project might undermine Logically's reputation for non-partisanship. No project can pass ethics review until reviewers (including one who is external to the company) unanimously agree that there is no significant risk of a conflict of interest arising as a result of the project, nor that it might undermine our commitment to non-partisanship. All staff members at Logically are also contractually obliged not to conduct any activity which might unduly damage Logically's reputation, which would include damaging our reputation for non-partisanship

Logically's police on nonpartisanship is spelled out clearly in a "Transparency" section on its website https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency

Logically has stringent policies in place about the involvement of editorial staff in political activities. (See attached Political 
Activity Policy" supplied with this application.

These sections are of relevance:

Whilst at work and under the company’s employment, employees are prohibited from:

• Publicly endorsing any political party or candidate.

• Making, printing or distributing in print or digitally, any party-political literature unless expressly for the purposes of their work.

• Clearly indicating support for any political party or partisan political cause, especially where that statement could reasonably be construed as the position of Logically as a whole. The only exception to this is when the cause in question is directly relevant to Logically’s mission and its support has been established as the official position of Logically as a company.

• Behaving in a manner which could amount to bullying, harassment or discrimination of colleagues based on political opinions, or exposing a colleague’s personal political views.

• Working in any way that could be reasonably understood as serving partisan interests, political agendas not directly relevant to Logically’s mission, or otherwise undermining Logically’s reputation for non-partisanship and political neutrality.

Both in and outside of work, employees must not behave in a manner which could potentially damage the company’s reputation, including but not limited to our reputation for non-partisanship and political neutrality. As such, employees must refrain from doing any of the following:

• Carrying out any work, whether paid or voluntary, for any political party or advocacy group which could be construed as explicit or tacit support for the party or cause on the part of Logically.

• Making any public declarations on political matters which could be construed as the position of the company at large. This includes declarations made online and on social media.

• Knowingly entering into any relationship with any organisation which could create a conflict of interest with their work at Logically.

• Withholding any information concerning potential conflicts of interest which might undermine Logically’s reputation for non-partisanship.

• Behaving in any way which amounts to bullying, harassment or discrimination of a member of the public based on political opinions or views. This includes behaviour on social media and social networking sites.

An edited version of this non-partisan policy can be round at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency

Off particular relevance is the section marked "Non-partisanship Policy"

Logically also has an ethics policy, as well as an ethics review process, that is applied company-wide, not just to editorial. (See Ethics Review document supplied with this application)

1) With every fact-check it does, Logically supplies a list with links to its source. They also supply sources that may contradict their findings. These are categorised as Supporting", "Refutes" and "Neutral". I find this very innovative as users can see sources Logically has used. It also allows users to do further, more in-depth reading of the source material. if they wish. A link to the WHO website is Included among sources list for all COVID-19-related fact-checks 

Based on a wide, randomised check of published fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically meets the required criteria

Based on a wide, randomised check of published fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically meets the required criteria

Based on a wide, randomised check of published fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically meets the required criteria

Logically Fact-Check is the fact-checking unit of Logically’s Editorial Division, which in turn is a division of Logically Ltd. 

Logically Fact-Check is the fact-checking unit of Logically’s Editorial Division, which in turn is a division of Logically Ltd. See  https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10850644 for details of Companies House UK registration 

4.2

We publish the following statement on our website on our ‘Transparency’ page (www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency )

"TheLogically (trading as Logically) is a UK registered company (no. 10850644; you can check our records at Companies House here [ https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10850644 ]). Logically was founded in 2017 by CEO Lyric Jain. Logically is funded by a combination of Lyric's personal investment in the company (using personal savings and money from family business Eliza Tinsley [ https://elizatinsley.co.uk/ ], by venture capital investment from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund [ https://www.npif.co.uk/ ], managed by Mercia Asset Management [ https://www.mercia.co.uk/ ] , and investment from XTX Ventures [ https://www.xtxmarkets.com/ ]. Lyric Jain remains the only person with significant control of Logically."

Additionally, we would like to disclose to the IFCN that the investment we have received from Mercia and XTX is in the amount of £1m and £1.5m respectively. In the interests of full disclosure, we would also like to state that Lyric Jain has additional personal financial interests in Avocet Hardware Ltd., but this company itself has no financial stake in Logically or any of its activities (we do, however, house our headquarters in the same building as Avocet, and share some operational resources (tech support, logistics, estate management and so on)).

Logically is the fact-checking section of Logically Ltd. It is registered at Companies House and all its mandatory financial and other legally required reporting is up-to-date https://bit.ly/2XVyyaS  

The ownership of Logically is clearly spelled out on their website (See "Funding") https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency#funding

Logically supplied a full disclosure of its funding sources - in the form of investments - with its application

Our organisational structure is set out in our 'Transparency' page https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency 

On that page we also give some information about how we ensure the proper independence of our editorial division, and make it clear that editorial control is ultimately exercised by the Senior Editor, who is (along with all other members of the Editorial division) prohibited from engaging in any discussions concerning commercial opportunities or potential partnerships with governmental organisations.

Our organisational structure is set out in our 'Transparency' page https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency 

On that page we also give some information about how we ensure the proper independence of our editorial division, and make it clear that editorial control is ultimately exercised by the Senior Editor, who is (along with all other members of the Editorial division) prohibited from engaging in any discussions concerning commercial opportunities or potential partnerships with governmental organisations.

EDIT: In response to a suggestion by the IFCN assessor, we have added a clear 'editorial independence' heading to the relevant section on our transparency page.

Logically's policy on editorial independence is comprehensively explained at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency 

"The principle of editorial independence is of paramount importance in Logically’s mission. We practice editorial independence in order to fulfill our mission of being a reliable source of high-quality information to our users, and we scrupulously ensure that no reasonable person could infer any systematic partisan bias from our output, or from the way that our business is organised or conducted.

We practice editorial independence by ensuring that the subjects and conclusions of our fact-checks, writings and investigations are only ever directed by our curiosity, the available evidence, responsible research practices, and Logically’s mission and values.

We have taken steps to ensure that the commercial interests of Logically can never influence our editorial output. These steps include:

* Members of the editorial team are prohibited from participating in any discussions concerning specific commercial opportunities.

* Any Logically project must undergo an ethics review, as a part of which any potential risk to Logically’s reputation for non-partisanship must be anticipated and addressed.

* No editorial output of any kind is subject to final approval by any member of Logically outside of the editorial team.

* The Senior Editor reports directly to the CEO on all matters except those which could reasonably be construed as falling under proper independent editorial discretion; in those matters, the senior editor will continue to operate with full editorial discretion until such time as an editorial board can be established (by the end of 2020), at which point that board will be the final deciding body on editorial matters."

Details of organisational structure can be found here: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency#organisational

RECOMMENDATION: After the section “Funding at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency

insert a heading Editorial Independence” to highlight the details already there

Logically's policy on editorial independence is comprehensively explained at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency 

"The principle of editorial independence is of paramount importance in Logically’s mission. We practice editorial independence in order to fulfill our mission of being a reliable source of high-quality information to our users, and we scrupulously ensure that no reasonable person could infer any systematic partisan bias from our output, or from the way that our business is organised or conducted.

We practice editorial independence by ensuring that the subjects and conclusions of our fact-checks, writings and investigations are only ever directed by our curiosity, the available evidence, responsible research practices, and Logically’s mission and values.

We have taken steps to ensure that the commercial interests of Logically can never influence our editorial output. These steps include:

* Members of the editorial team are prohibited from participating in any discussions concerning specific commercial opportunities.

* Any Logically project must undergo an ethics review, as a part of which any potential risk to Logically’s reputation for non-partisanship must be anticipated and addressed.

* No editorial output of any kind is subject to final approval by any member of Logically outside of the editorial team.

* The Senior Editor reports directly to the CEO on all matters except those which could reasonably be construed as falling under proper independent editorial discretion; in those matters, the senior editor will continue to operate with full editorial discretion until such time as an editorial board can be established (by the end of 2020), at which point that board will be the final deciding body on editorial matters."

Details of organisational structure can be found here: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency#organisational

RECOMMENDATION: After the section “Funding at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/transparency

insert a heading Editorial Independence” to highlight the details already there

At www.logically.ai/about we publish the names, photographs and biographies of everybody who works within the Editorial Division, together with the same information concerning senior managers within the company.

Some of our fact-checkers refer to themselves using only their first name and initial. We would like to make clear that this is not an attempt at pseudonymisation, but rather a standard naming convention in some parts of Southern India, where many of our fact-checkers are based.

See Meet our team https://www.logically.ai/about 

The senior editor is in the "Leadership" tab; the senior editorial team is in the "Editorial" tab, and the fact-checking team is in the "Fact-Checking" (Click on team members' photos for full individual bios)

Our website features a ‘contact’ page ( https://www.logically.ai/contact ), which is prominently linked from both the header and footer of every main page of our site.

The contact form provides the option to ‘submit a correction’, and any message marked as such is directed to the Senior Editor and the Senior Fact Checkers for their attention.

Each fact check published on our library also displays a call to action for users to ‘ask a question’ regarding any specific claim, which also allows users to submit correction requests directly from the fact check in question.

There is also prominent functionality in the Logically app to submit comments and correction requests to any of our fact checks.

There is a "Contact" tab on the home page. On the contact page, there is a web form. Logically undertakes to respond to any queries within three to four working days. This tab appears on top of all the main pages of the site. Additionally, there is a further "contact" link at the footer of pages.

The contact form has an option to ‘submit a correction’. Messages marked as a correction are directed to the Senior Editor and the Senior Fact Checkers for their attention

Each fact check also has a prominent "Have a question? Ask us" link for queries about that fact-check. It has the following explanation: "Please tell us if you think this claim had been misjudged or requires correction by sending us evidence to support your error claim. We will revisit our evidence and verdict and do some additional research to double-check if we can verify the new information."

Users can also submit comments and correction requests to any of fact checks via the Logically app. At the end of every fact-check, there is a prominent banner link to both the Android and iOS stores to download the free app. The manner reads: "Download Logically’s free app, submit a claim and our fact-checking team will do all the hard work."

Details concerning our methodology for selecting, researching, writing and publishing fact checks can be found in the methodology section of our 'Fact Check' page at www.logically.ai/factchecks                            

Details concerning our methodology for selecting, researching, writing and publishing fact checks can be found in the methodology section of our 'Fact Check' page at www.logically.ai/factchecks                            

Logically meets All the relevant in can be found in the FAQs https://www.logically.ai/factchecks 

Logically meets All the relevant in can be found in the FAQs https://www.logically.ai/factchecks 

Having explored a selection of fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically complies with required criteria

Having explored a selection of fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logially complies with required criteria

Having explored a selection of fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically complies with required criteria

Having explored a selection of fact-checks, I am satisfied that Logically complies with required criteria

Logically's principal source of claims to check is user submissions. We encourage user submission of fact checks in our app, in our marketing, and in several places on our website (including our 'About' page and 'Fact-Check' page, and in a banner across our front page).

We set out the process by which our claims are checked, and the circumstances in which we may reject a submitted claim, in the 'Methodology' section of our 'Fact Check' page ( www.logically.ai/factchecks ).

Logically's principal source of claims to check is user submissions. We encourage user submission of fact checks in our app, in our marketing, and in several places on our website (including our 'About' page and 'Fact-Check' page, and in a banner across our front page).

We set out the process by which our claims are checked, and the circumstances in which we may reject a submitted claim, in the 'Methodology' section of our 'Fact Check' page ( www.logically.ai/factchecks ).

EDIT: In response to comments from the IFCN assessor, we have added the following clarification to the methodology section of our 'Fact-Check' page:

What can we check?

Logically will investigate, verify and adjudicate any suitable claim submitted to us by a user.

A suitable claim:

Is any statement made in a public or publicly accessible forum.

Can be properly assessed as more or less reasonable, or simply true or false.

Can be adjudicated on the basis of publicly available evidence and commonly held standards of reasoning.

While Logically staff may occasionally select something to fact-check, the majority of fact-check requests come from user submission via their app, the "About" and "Fact-Check pages and, they say, in their marketing. While goes into some detail about the circumstances in which a claim may be rejected it does not explicitly - and simply - say what can e fact-checked and what cannot be.

RECOMMENDATION

Add a clarification on https://www.logically.ai/factchecks and in-app so readers know what can and what can be fact-checked. Not only will this serve to educate people, but it would help prevent claims that cannot be fact-checked from being submitted.

This via FactCheckNI is a useful guide to how it can be worded:

"Claims that are researched by FactCheckNI are done so only with publicly available sources. In order for FactCheckNI to research a claim, the claim must be:

* a statement made in public, which can be attributed to a specific person (e.g. a politician or campaigner) or organisation (e.g. a report)

* an assertion or allegation that can be validated or refuted (to a degree)

* based on past or present actions (i.e. not speculative about the future)

While Logically staff may occasionally select something to fact-check, the majority of fact-check requests come from user submission via their app, the "About" and "Fact-Check pages and, they say, in their marketing. While goes into some detail about the circumstances in which a claim may be rejected it does not explicitly - and simply - say what can e fact-checked and what cannot be.

RECOMMENDATION

Add a clarification on https://www.logically.ai/factchecks and in-app so readers know what can and what can be fact-checked. Not only will this serve to educate people, but it would help prevent claims that cannot be fact-checked from being submitted.

This via FactCheckNI is a useful guide to how it can be worded:

"Claims that are researched by FactCheckNI are done so only with publicly available sources. In order for FactCheckNI to research a claim, the claim must be:

* a statement made in public, which can be attributed to a specific person (e.g. a politician or campaigner) or organisation (e.g. a report)

* an assertion or allegation that can be validated or refuted (to a degree)

* based on past or present actions (i.e. not speculative about the future)

Our corrections policy is published at www.logically.ai/factchecks in our 'methodology' section.

The corrections policy is clearly explained in the FAQs at https://www.logically.ai/factchecks in a "Corrections tab"

From the corrections page:

"Fact checks may need to be revised for a number of reasons, including the emergence of new information, discovery of new evidence, or to correct typographical errors. If you believe we have made an error in any aspect of one of our fact-checks, submit a complaint through the app, or contact us through our contact page.

Each fact check comes with a unique tracking code which allows our editorial team to quickly trace any fact-check which may be the subject of an update, complaint or correction.

Fact-checks which are edited with substantive corrections will be marked with a ‘correction’ label on the sharable image.

Fact-checks which are edited with non-substantive corrections (to fix spelling, grammatical or other mistakes which do not contribute to the substance of the claim or judgment) will be marked as ‘updated’.

Complaints will be assessed by senior members of the fact-checking and editorial team, and promptly responded to, with reasons given for our decision to either correct a fact-check or leave it as it stands.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you will be able to issue a further complaint to our senior editor, who will take any necessary steps to satisfactorily address the issue, up to and including appointing an independent advisor to investigate the claim.

Users who have received or tracked a fact-check which is the subject of an update or a correction will be notified."

And, 

Journalistic Corrections and Right of Reply

If you notice something published in our journalistic, research or educational output which you believe to be inaccurate, misleading or unfair, please submit a correction request to our editorial team on our contact us page. Any complaints will be raised to the senior editor and responded to within 48 hours. Any complaint found to have substantive merit will be publicly corrected, and the correction given equal prominence to the article in question. We offer anybody who was the subject of criticism in our reporting the right to reply, provided a prima facie case can be made that our criticisms can be fairly addressed. Reasons for any refusal to grant a right to reply will be published on our website.

RECOMMENDATION: Where a substantial correction has been made, Logically should consider tweet/posting a link to the corrected fact-check to its social media, if they are already not doing so. This means that anyone who may have seen the original fact-check on social media and may not revisit it on the site or via the app is aware of it.

I have reviewed the corrections policy and I am satisfied that they meet the necessary criteria

Over the previous six months we have had 42 requests for corrections submitted either through our app or our website form. Of these, 27 constituted substantive correction claims (with the rest falling under the category of general complaints, random strings of words or similar).

We also periodically internally review our fact-check library, and occasionally submit internal requests for review or correction where we identify a possibility of error. A further 13 fact checks have been corrected over the past six months as a result of an internal suggestion.

Of the substantive complaints we received, 17 resulted in substantive corrections being published. Any corrected fact check which was also published on our website is featured in the ‘corrections’ tab of our fact-check library. Any corrected fact check which was not published on our website (but instead just sent to the user who requested it), is flagged as corrected on the app, and any user who had interacted with the claim via the app was notified of the correction.

Below are two examples of external correction requests we have received, together with brief statements describing how they were addressed. Attached are screenshots of the shareable image, together with screenshots of the correction request messages we received (with user personal information redacted).

1) “Governor Gretchen Whitmer has banned public from growing their own food”

URL: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/496e4998 

Initial Judgement: False

Revised Judgement: Misleading

We initially judged this claim to be false, since there was no official statements nor local news reporting available at the time the claim was submitted suggesting that gardening was restricted, although there were general lockdown orders in place. A reader got in touch with us and pointed out that the garden centre restrictions included a ban on opening several areas of gardening centres across the board, including nurseries. We decided to revise our judgement to ‘Misleading’ from ‘False’, because it is true to say that severe restrictions have been put in place which make it more difficult for people to grow their own food, even though it is false to say that it has been banned.

We notified the user that this correction had been made, and received no further communication.

2) “Bill Gates is behind the creation of the COVID-19 pandemic”

URL (N/A)

Initial Judgement: False

Revised Judgement: False

We recognised this as a well known conspiracy theory, and following our research found that there was no cause to give this anything other than a ‘False’ verdict.

We received a correction request from a user other than the one who submitted the claim, who took issue with our phrasing of the claim itself, and suggesting that there were other conspiracies which Gates is a party to. We investigated, found that there was also no credible evidence available to back these common conspiracy theories, and responded to the user that, in our judgement, the claim was put fairly and the judgement stands. We received no further communication. This claim was never published on our website, but we attach a copy of the shareable image which was returned to the user.

6.3: I have checked the statements made in the submission, as well as the evidence submitted and I am satisfied that they meet the necessary criteria. Earlier this year Logically has strengthened and increased staffing of its fact-checking team and protocols and the number of corrections they have had to make has been dramatically reduced.

I base this on this statement Logically supplied in response to Question 6.5: "The wider editorial team in its current form has only been operating since March 2020; as yet we have received no complaints nor have we needed to make any substantive corrections to any of our published content."

This is Logically's submission:

"Over the previous six months, we have had 42 requests for corrections submitted either through our app or our website form. Of these, 27 constituted substantive correction claims (with the rest falling under the category of general complaints, random strings of words or similar).

We also periodically internally review our fact-check library, and occasionally submit internal requests for review or correction where we identify a possibility of error. A further 13 fact checks have been corrected over the past six months as a result of an internal suggestion.

Of the substantive complaints we received, 17 resulted in substantive corrections being published. Any corrected fact check which was also published on our website is featured in the ‘corrections’ tab of our fact-check library. Any corrected fact check which was not published on our website (but instead just sent to the user who requested it), is flagged as corrected on the app, and any user who had interacted with the claim via the app was notified of the correction.

Below are two examples of external correction requests we have received, together with brief statements describing how they were addressed. Attached are screenshots of the shareable image, together with screenshots of the correction request messages we received (with user personal information redacted).

1) “Governor Gretchen Whitmer has banned public from growing their own food”

URL: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/496e4998

Initial Judgement: False

Revised Judgement: Misleading

We initially judged this claim to be false, since there was no official statements nor local news reporting available at the time the claim was submitted suggesting that gardening was restricted, although there were general lockdown orders in place. A reader got in touch with us and pointed out that the garden centre restrictions included a ban on opening several areas of gardening centres across the board, including nurseries. We decided to revise our judgment to ‘Misleading’ from ‘False’, because it is true to say that severe restrictions have been put in place which make it more difficult for people to grow their own food, even though it is false to say that it has been banned.

We notified the user that this correction had been made, and received no further communication.

2) “Bill Gates is behind the creation of the COVID-19 pandemic”

URL (N/A)

Initial Judgement: False

Revised Judgement: False

We recognised this as a well-known conspiracy theory, and following our research found that there was no cause to give this anything other than a ‘False’ verdict.

We received a correction request from a user other than the one who submitted the claim, who took issue with our phrasing of the claim itself, and suggesting that there were other conspiracies that Gates is a party to. We investigated, found that there was also no credible evidence available to back these common conspiracy theories, and responded to the user that, in our judgment, the claim was put fairly and the judgment stands. We received no further communication. This claim was never published on our website, but we attach a copy of the shareable image which was returned to the user.

n/a

The corrections policy of the Editorial Division of Logically is published on the same page as our fact-checking corrections policy, in our 'methodology' section: www.logically.ai/factchecks

The wider editorial team in its current form has only been operating since March 2020; as yet we have received no complaints nor have we needed to make any substantive corrections to any of our published content.

See the Methodology section www.logically.ai/factchecks