UK Britain’s Leading Fact-Checking Firm Collapses Amid Industry Shift and Strategic Missteps

[Social Media]

 

Britain’s Leading Fact-Checking Firm Collapses Amid Industry Shift and Strategic Missteps

 

Britain’s largest fact-checking company, Logically, has gone into administration after a series of financial and strategic blows, marking a sharp downturn for a once-prominent player in the fight against digital disinformation. The company, founded in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit referendum, once employed 200 people across the UK, India, and the United States and had secured major contracts with governments and tech giants.

 

 

The collapse comes after Logically lost key partnerships with Meta and TikTok, which had relied on its services under the "Logically Facts" brand. These deals, worth millions, had been central to the firm’s operations. While sources close to the company claimed the social media contracts were lost due to commercial considerations, former employees and industry insiders suggest the downfall was linked to reputational issues and leadership decisions.

 

Lyric Jain, Logically’s founder and a Cambridge-educated engineer, said the project was driven by a personal mission. He cited the death of his grandmother in India, who had abandoned chemotherapy in favor of a fraudulent juice remedy, as a motivating force behind his effort to counter harmful misinformation. “Tackling harmful and manipulative content at speed and scale” and “bringing truth to the digital world, and making it a safer place for everyone everywhere” were core to the company’s mission, Jain said.

 

However, former staff members point to a decision that may have fatally damaged the company’s credibility: a contract with the Indian state government of Karnataka to support a controversial fact-checking unit. Critics, including the Editors Guild of India, warned the unit could be used to stifle dissent and silence independent journalism. That association led to Logically losing its certification from the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an influential industry body that prohibits fact-checkers from working directly with state governments or political parties.

 

Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the IFCN, explained the revocation. “They lost their certification in part because of that and also concerns about overall transparency,” she said. “It wasn’t clear what work was journalistic and what work was … private, for lack of a better word. We knew that they were doing some work advising governments, but it wasn’t very clear what the nature of that work was or how it impacted their fact-checking operation. There was no allegation that they were doing anything wrong. But our code is about meeting very high standards.”

 

Logically also worked for the British government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit during the Covid-19 pandemic, a partnership that drew criticism from free speech advocates. Meanwhile, the broader fact-checking industry is facing a wave of pullbacks from major platforms, particularly in the wake of Donald Trump’s return to office. Meta recently scrapped external fact-checking in the U.S., replacing it with crowd-sourced systems similar to those used by Elon Musk’s platform X. This week, X announced that AI would be writing fact-checking notes for its “Community Notes” feature. Google, too, has scaled back support, recently discontinuing its ClaimReview tool, which promoted fact-checked content in search results.

 

Chris Morris, CEO of British fact-checking charity Full Fact, criticised the trend: “Google’s decision to deprioritise fact-checks will make it harder for users to access accurate information designed to help them make informed choices. It’s a disappointing decision from a company that has until very recently been a global fact-checking champion.” Google responded by calling the move a “minor clean-up” that affected only “a very small percentage of results.”

 

Logically had attempted to pivot toward AI-powered disinformation analysis with a product called Logically Intelligence. But the plan was undermined when platforms like X restricted third-party access to their data. Eventually, Logically’s assets were transferred to a new company called Kreatur through a pre-pack administration deal. Kreatur is led by Ashwin Kumaraswamy, a former director and early investor in Logically.

 

A spokesperson for Kreatur said, “Kreatur Ltd has acquired Logically’s core technology, brand and key assets as part of a pre-pack administration process. The transaction ensures continuity for all customers and preserves over 40 full-time roles.”

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Times  2025-07-08

 

 

[JonnyF]

Just like the BBC's own fact checking service, Logically provided the best facts Liberals could buy.

 

https://www.opindia.com/2022/05/logically-the-left-leaning-disinformation-platform-that-sponsored-rahul-gandhis-cambridge-event-in-london/

 

[MarkBR]

I imagine the redtop newspapers would be appalled by a company focused on fact-checking.   Many of their stories would never be published if fact-checked.

[wombat]

There is a firm that fact checks,?

[roquefort]

Who fact checks the fact checkers?

[mikeymike100]

55 minutes ago, wombat said:

There is a firm that fact checks,?

Well, there was?😉

[alex8912]

3 hours ago, roquefort said:

Who fact checks the fact checkers?

There are eight of them right here on this forum daily. At least they think they are.