demands. However, even so, Watchdog faces issues related to human resources. Wijerathne stated that the volunteer model is not sustainable, as people with good skills in fact checking are most often not in a position to provide their services on a volunteer basis (interview, 2021). Dulamkhorloo Baatar shared a similar sentiment. She acknowledged that fact checkers should come with the “right mindset” and have a sense of social responsibility as part of their work ethic, and she also emphasized that compensation is required if fact checking activities are to be sustainable (interview, 2021). Bangladesh faces a severe lack of human resources to support fact checking. Fact checkers are a small community in the country and have been trained by two key organizations working on information disorder. One of these is the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Sumon Rahman made the following comments on the issue: “There are no fact checkers in the market. The handful of fact checkers that we have [were] trained by us and another organization. So two or three people are behind all these initiatives. We need to train more people” (interview, 2021). In addition, Duman Smaqov recalled having to rely on a Ukrainian colleague to learn about fact checking, as it was such a new activity in Kazakhstan (interview, 2021). 4.3 CREDIBILITY ISSUES Fact checkers, journalists, and civil society organizations across the region often encounter attacks on their credibility. Most of these organizations depend on funding from international donors, which affects how the organizations and their actions are perceived by the public and even by governments. There are negative perceptions surrounding international funding and NGOs in many Asian countries (De Coninck et al. 2021). Thus, such organizations are sometimes seen as having vested interests that are opposed to the interests of the countries that they operate in, and of having biases against national governments. Injina Panthi mentioned that some groups on social media tend to discredit South Asia Check by associating them with a “conspiracy” or an “agenda,” because they receive international donor money. She added: “Also, government agencies and politicians are ignorant about fact checking. So it is difficult to explain to them who we are and what we do. Often we have to explain [it to] them” (interview, 2021). I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH Nalaka Gunawardene mentioned an incident of a prominent government minister in Sri Lanka accusing Factcheck.lk, one of the key fact-checking organizations in Sri Lanka, of being biased towards certain political parties (also see Factcheck.lk 2021): “Udaya Gammanpilla15 once held an entire press conference to vilify and discredit Factcheck.‌ lk. The thing is, perceptions matter. Even if you are completely careful and ethical, fingers [can still be] pointed at fact-checking individuals or factchecking entities to undermine their credibility. This is an occupational hazard for fact checkers” (interview, 2021). Fact checkers tend to rely on certification from organizations like the IFCN to obtain funding from international sources, as certification gives them more credibility. But a lack of local contextual knowledge and fluency in specific languages among IFCN assessors creates delays in the certification process. This creates another barrier to obtaining funding. According to Dulamkhorloo Baatar, the Mongolian Fact Checking Center encountered delays in obtaining IFCN certification due to a lack of IFCN accessors who possess both knowledge and expertise on Mongolia and sufficient Englishlanguage skills: “They couldn’t find a suitable assessor who understood the Mongolian media environment and who spoke good enough English. That’s the main reason; it took them four or five months to find that person” (interview, 2021). Oiwan Lam had the following thoughts on the situation: “It was a very slow process. But finally, we got an assessor. We submit[ted] the applications early, maybe end of December 2019. It takes a long time to assess, because I know that in the IFCN there is only one reviewer who is capable of reading Chinese” (interview, 2021). Qadaruddin Shishir mentioned the impact of negative perceptions of Western countries on their work and how their fact checks are perceived by the public: “ I think if people want to accuse us, they can accuse us because the UNDP is a foreign entity. In a country like Bangladesh, 80 to 90 percent of Muslims [are prejudiced] against Western things. They can [claim] that these organizations are serving the causes of Western countries or Western ideologies” (interview, 2021). Ellen Tordesillas, Asia – 2 26