Most claims are already fact-checked: you just haven't looked yet. Paste anything below. We check if it's already been debunked, then guide you through who's behind it, where it started, and who else is saying it. No verdict handed to you.
Check a claim
The idea, in one picture
You wouldn't trust a stranger just because they told you they're trustworthy. You'd ask around about them.
Lateral reading is asking around about a website — leaving it to see what others say, instead of judging it by how it looks.
The idea
~1 second
We search a database of published fact-checks first. If professionals already looked at this, you see their findings immediately. Half of claims can end right here.
~10 seconds
If nothing's on file, we skip the checklist and ask the single most useful thing: do you recognize who's behind this, and would they benefit from you believing it? For a lot of claims, that's enough.
Only if you want
When a claim actually warrants it, dig deeper: who's behind it, where it originated, who else is covering it, with one-click searches and coaching at each step. This is the real skill, on demand rather than by default.
"New study says this one common food doubles your risk of heart disease."
The scan finds a related fact-check: one outlet rated a near-identical headline Missing Context. That's already a signal, in about a second, that the framing is contested.
Who's behind it? The claim traces to a supplement retailer's blog, and they'd benefit from you distrusting the food. That's the reflex firing.
Dig deeper and the "study" turns out to be a conference abstract, not a peer-reviewed paper. "Doubles your risk" means going from 2% to 4%. Two other major outlets never covered it at all.
The tool never said true or false. You now know exactly why you'd hold this one loosely, and you got there in under two minutes.
The method, in a word: SCAN
Why it works this way
The tool never tells you a claim is true or false. It shows you how to find out, because a credibility score you don't understand is just another thing to take on faith.
Fact-checkers don't judge a source by studying the source. They leave it and see what the rest of the web says. That single habit is the whole method.
The point of checking quickly is knowing what to ignore, so your attention goes to things that deserve it. A quick exit is a win, not a failure.
What you check isn't logged or sold. The analysis happens, and then it's gone. No accounts, no tracking.
Part of a set
Critical Ignoring Companion
Paste a heated comment or reply. Get a read on whether it's worth your time: reply, ignore, or block.
critignore.com ↗Identity Map & Network Audit
See the lenses you bring to information before you even encounter it, and how diverse your close network really is.
See the tools ↗A browser extension is on the way. It'll do all this proactively, right on the page you're reading.
Browser extension · coming soon