5/27/22, 7:10 PM Faster facts: The rapid expansion of fact-checking – News in Asia But questions remain about how this will affect the scope of fact-checkers’ work. For instance, politicians’ posts are currently exempted from the 3PFC program, with Facebook saying that placing limits on the speech of elected officials would infringe the people’s right to know. But politicians in the region tend to be one of the main drivers of widespread misinformation and disinformation given their political biases and their wide public reach. 35 What may work in Western countries does not necessarily benefit Asia’s news audiences. Fact-checking is quickly becoming one of journalism’s most vibrant and collegial areas of work. Its ongoing expansion across Asia is likely in the foreseeable future. As new initiatives launch in the region, there will be more players with differing degrees of skills, ethical standards and even motivations. The field will inevitably become more entangled, especially with government-supported projects, and risks becoming more fragmented, and less unified, in the long run. Asian fact-checkers will inevitably be at the forefront of efforts to keep public conversations grounded in established facts. References Masato Kajimoto, PhD, is an associate professor of practice at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. He specialises in news literacy education and misinformation ecosystem research in Asia. In 2019 he founded a region-focused education nonfor-profit called ANNIE (Asian Network of News and Information Educators). He also leads a student-driven fact-checking project called Annie Lab at the university. https://newsinasia.jninstitute.org/chapter/faster-facts-the-rapid-expansion-of-fact-checking/ 13/13