Verify the Source
Six checks that tell you whether the account, site, document or file behind a claim is what it says it is — plus a free authenticity read on the media itself. No account, no limit.
Checking the claim rather than the source? Run a fact check.
Six checks, in order of speed
Each one takes under a minute, and the early ones eliminate most bad sources before you spend real time on them.
Who is actually publishing this?
Find the About, Imprint or Contact page and look for a named organisation, a physical address and named editors. Credible publishers say who they are and how to reach them. A site with no ownership information, a generic contact form and stock-photo staff portraits is telling you something. Check the domain's age and registration with a WHOIS lookup: a site created three weeks ago that reports on decades-old institutions is worth doubting.
Is the account the person it appears to be?
Impersonation is cheaper than fabrication. Check the handle character by character against the real organisation's linked profiles, the creation date, and whether the same posts appear on the entity's own website. A verified badge means someone paid or was checked at some point in the past — it is not identity proof today.
Does the source have first-hand knowledge?
Trace the chain back to whoever was actually present, held the document, or ran the measurement. Aggregators quoting aggregators create the impression of many sources where there is one. Ask: what would this person have had to see to know this? If the answer is 'they read the same post you did', you have no source.
Does the evidence match the claim?
Open the linked study, filing or report instead of trusting the summary. Check that the numbers quoted appear in it, that the population studied matches the population described, and that the date is current. Misrepresented real documents are far more common than invented ones — and much more persuasive.
What does the source have at stake?
Funding, ownership, political affiliation and commercial interest do not make a claim false, but they tell you how hard to look for the missing side. A credible source discloses its interests and publishes corrections; check whether corrections exist at all, since an outlet that has never been wrong has never been checking.
Is the file itself what it claims to be?
Documents, screenshots and photographs presented as evidence deserve their own check. Upload the image, video or audio above and Verity reads the camera metadata, resave history and noise structure to tell you whether it looks captured, edited or generated — the piece of source verification you cannot do by reading.
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Credible vs. not: a quick table
| Signal | Credible | Doubtful |
|---|---|---|
| Named, contactable ownership | Named editors, address, corrections policy | Anonymous, no imprint, no corrections |
| Distance from the event | First-hand: present, held the document | Third-hand: quoting a post quoting a post |
| Evidence you can open | Links to primary filings and data | Links only to itself or to aggregators |
| Track record | Publishes and marks its corrections | Silently edits or deletes mistakes |
| Disclosed interests | States funding and affiliations | Hides who pays for it |
Where source verification usually goes wrong
The two failures we see most often are opposites. The first is stopping at the label: treating a familiar masthead or a blue check as the end of the check, when the question is whether this specific claim has evidence behind it. The second is dismissing everything: deciding that because any source can be wrong, none is worth weighing — which leaves you believing whatever you saw last. Verification is comparative, not binary. You are ranking how much weight a claim can carry, and writing down the reason so someone else can check your reasoning too.
Common questions
- How do I verify a source online?
- Work outward from the claim: identify who is publishing (named people, contactable address, domain age), how close they are to the event, whether the evidence they cite says what they claim, what interests they hold, and whether the file itself is authentic. A source that fails the first check rarely survives the others.
- What makes a source credible?
- Credibility is not authority or tone. It comes from four things you can verify: identifiable ownership, first-hand access to the evidence, primary material you can open and read yourself, and a visible record of correcting mistakes. A source with all four can still be wrong, but you can audit it — which is the whole point.
- How can I check if a website is legitimate?
- Look up the domain's registration date and registrar, read the About and Contact pages for named humans, search the organisation's name alongside words like 'owner' and 'funding', and see whether other established outlets cite it. Watch for lookalike domains: an extra hyphen or a .co in place of .com is the classic impersonation trick.
- Can you verify a source with a screenshot?
- A screenshot is the weakest form of evidence, because it is trivial to edit and stripped of the original file's metadata by the act of capturing and reposting it. Whenever possible, find the live URL or archived copy on the Wayback Machine. If a screenshot is all that exists, upload it above — the check will tell you whether the pixels show signs of editing, though it cannot confirm the page ever existed.
- Is checking a source free here?
- Yes. The authenticity check on this page is free and unlimited with no account and no sign-up; ads keep it running. Verity Pro exists only for people who want the site ad-free.