Defending fact-checking partnerships with platform companies: ‘We can't fight alone against disinformation’

Abstract

This article investigates how professional fact-checkers defend collaborations with major platform companies such as Meta, Alphabet, and ByteDance. Drawing on 12 qualitative interviews with European fact-checkers, the study applies rhetorical apologia theory to analyse recurring justificatory arguments. We identify four modes of differentiation and three modes of transcendence employed by fact-checkers. Arguments of differentiation involve distancing fact-checking from platform company partners to emphasise editorial independence; distinguishing between different platform companies to legitimise partnerships with certain actors while rejecting others (notably TikTok owned by ByteDance); separating platform companies as a whole and specific employees within them; and contrasting platform funding with state funding to defend the former as less compromising for editorial autonomy. Arguments of transcendence invoke counter-factual scenarios of unmitigated misinformation; appealing to broader alliances against disinformation; and highlighting the potential for improving platform companies from within. These findings contribute to existing scholarship by unpacking how fact-checkers negotiate the complex institutional dependencies of platform company partnerships by simultaneously acknowledging risks and asserting pragmatic necessity. As such, the study provides a deeper understanding of the challenges facing fact-checking organisations and their efforts to establish legitimacy as epistemic authorities in the boundary terrain shared with other key actors in today's media landscape.