How you can help
Below are two statements. We would like you to tell us if A and B mean the same thing.
If you can find the time to do this just ten times, you will be making a huge difference to our work. If you want to keep on going and do more you are very welcome. Our goal is to review 500,000 claims.
A claim is a statement about the world that is either true or false.
Two claims are said to match if they say substantially the same thing, even if they use different words to do so.
We want to compare a claim that we’ve already checked with new claims that we’ve found in the media.
When deciding if two claims match, it may help to think about the “Five W’s”: who, what, when, where and why. Who is each claim about, or being made by - and is it the same person in both cases? What is each claim about, and is that the same? And so on.
We’re not just looking for exact repeats however, but also for paraphrased versions or quoted versions.
Suppose we have a checked claim:
“Young people are not at risk from Covid-19 at all.”
Below are some hypothetical examples of claims we might have found in the media, that we need to review, along with an indication of whether they match the checked claim or not..
|
Young people are not at risk from Covid-19 at all. |
Identical to checked claim |
match |
|
Young people are not at all at risk from coronavirus. |
Almost identical paraphrase |
match |
|
Kids are at no risk from Covid. |
Less formal paraphrase |
match |
|
For the vast majority of young people, Covid-19 is not likely to be a significant threat to their health. |
Some caveats added, but still essentially the same claim |
match |
|
Are young people at risk from Covid-19? |
Rephrasing the claim as a question |
match |
|
The MP said, “Young people are not at risk from Covid-19 at all.” |
Quote of the original |
match |
|
The MP said that young people are not at risk from Covid-19. |
Paraphrased quote |
match |
|
Young people’s lives are being disrupted by Covid-19. |
No longer talking about young people health specifically |
not a match |
|
No one is at risk of Covid any more. |
Much more general claim than the checked claim. |
not a match |
|
Young people act as if they had nothing to fear. |
Much more general claim than the checked claim. |
not a match |
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