How The Truism works

Never “trust us”. Here's the evidence — decide for yourself.

Claim statuses

  • Known

    Supported by strong evidence and/or multiple independent credible sources.

  • Developing

    Credible reporting exists but the evidence is incomplete.

  • Disputed

    Credible sources or evidence currently conflict.

  • Unverified

    Insufficient reliable evidence currently exists.

  • Disproven

    Strong evidence demonstrates the circulating claim is incorrect.

The pipeline

  1. 01

    Discovery

    Approved feeds, APIs and permitted web sources are monitored continuously, prioritising Australian and major international events.

  2. 02

    Clustering

    Reports describing the same real-world event are grouped into a single Truism event.

  3. 03

    Claim extraction

    Each report is broken into individual factual claims rather than kept as an article.

  4. 04

    Primary source search

    Where possible the system locates the underlying document, dataset, transcript or official statement.

  5. 05

    Comparison

    Independent sources are compared to detect agreement, conflict and gaps.

  6. 06

    Status assignment

    Each claim is classified and re-assessed whenever new evidence arrives.

  7. 07

    Community corroboration

    Submitted evidence enters moderation before it can change a claim's status.

Source hierarchy

  • Tier 1 · Primary evidence
  • Tier 2 · Independent journalism
  • Tier 3 · Specialist / local
  • Tier 4 · Verified community
  • Tier 5 · Unverified material

How headlines are written

  • Concise, factual, natural and interesting — roughly 6–12 words.
  • Active voice and plain language: “strikes off Sendai coast”, not “recorded off the coast east of Sendai”.
  • State what happened, not what it might mean.
  • Never clickbait, sensational adjectives, emotional framing or click-driven questions.
  • No unsubstantiated conclusions and no repeated or redundant location detail.

Magnitude 7.1 earthquake recorded off the coast east of Sendai

Magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes off Sendai coast

Satellite record shows Antarctic sea ice near the lowest recorded seasonal extent

Antarctic sea ice falls near record seasonal low

Never used: sensational adjectives · emotional manipulation · questions written to generate clicks · “you won't believe…” constructions · unsubstantiated conclusions · excessively formal or bureaucratic language · repeating unnecessary location information.

Feed summaries

  • One or two short sentences in the feed.
  • Explain what happened and why it matters — no opinion, no speculation.
  • Never repeat what the headline already says.
  • Detail, methodology and full evidence live on the event page, not the feed.

Limitations of AI

  • AI can misread a source, miss context, or cluster two events incorrectly.
  • Absence of evidence is shown as Unverified, not as falsehood.
  • Where evidence cannot settle a political or ideological dispute, The Truism does not pick a side.
  • Source tier influences evidence strength but never automatically determines truth.
  • AI-generated imagery is never used to depict real events.

Corrections and challenges

Every event carries a visible update and correction history. Nothing is silently rewritten. Any user can challenge a claim by supplying contradicting evidence; challenges are reviewed and, if accepted, change the claim status and are logged on the event page.