LIMITATIONS IMPOSED BY LEGISLATION AND REGULATIONS Shmyla Khan noted that in Pakistan, government regulations are making it harder to access funding for NGOs and civil society organizations and that the government is using indirect threats, surveillance, and monitoring to create an atmosphere of selfcensorship: “Often you have to submit yourself to a lot of surveillance, which really is detrimental to your work—especially if it’s critical of the state and the government— “Often you have to submit in order to just receive funding, and yourself to a lot of surveillance, it leads to a lot of self-censoring. And there’s always a sword hanging over which really is detrimental to us—that funding can be stopped at your work—especially if it’s any moment” (interview, 2021). critical of the state and the Kirsten Han shared similar government—in order to just thoughts on the link between funding receive funding, and it leads and self-censorship. In Singapore, to a lot of self-censoring” civil society organizations face many obstacles in accessing funding, and (interview, Khan, 2021). there is a lack of understanding about the importance of fact checking and the expenses associated with it. Additionally, certain registration procedures that must be completed in order to operate as an independent media outlet in Singapore may prevent fact checkers from accessing foreign funding. This has led to a situation where most fact-checking initiatives are run by volunteers: It’s very difficult for civil society groups that might be seen to be critical of the government to get funding. Some [funders] don’t fund you because they’re scared; some don’t fund you because they don’t understand the cost and the value. And if you are an independent media outlet, you probably might already be registered to say that you can’t take foreign funding, including grants. Or if you do take foreign funding, that will be used to attack you. (interview, 2021) Similarly, according to Duman Smaqov, in Uzbekistan fact-checking operations are restricted by government limitations on transferring foreign funds into the country (interview, 2021). SOLUTIONS Organizations with links to larger media companies or associations fare better, because they have better access to funding opportunities. In Nepal, the Center for Media Research has been forced to take creative measures to solve funding problems. They noticed that fact checking is not an area that attracts the attention of funders; in response, I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH they changed their large-scale funding proposals to include only minor elements of fact checking: “And that [funding] comes not directly for [fact checking], but as a small part of other projects. So what we try to do is to include fact checking as a small component in every project. But it’s not direct funding to do fact checking” (interview, Umesh Shrestha, 2021). Needrup Zangpo of the Bhutan Media Foundation noted that seed money linked to their foundation helps them to maintain operations when funding dries up (interview, 2021). Unfortunately this is not a situation in which many other organizations dealing with information disorder find themselves in. Sandun Arosha, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Citizen Fact Check in Sri Lanka, spoke about the importance of obtaining IFCN certification as a solution to the limitations in the organization’s current operations. They plan to work on obtaining IFCN certification, as it will lead to more funding opportunities which, in turn, will allow them to expand their fact checking from English to also include Sinhala and Tamil (interview, 2021). 4.2 HUMAN RESOURCES AND TRAINING Raisa Wickrematunge emphasized the difficulties faced by Himal Southasian in verifying information in certain languages. This makes it difficult to obtain multiple sources to back up the articles they publish, as sometimes the only reliable source of information on a topic in a certain language is the author or authors of the specific article: “Even though we do have some language capabilities in Sinhala and Tamil, since we are a small team, we don’t have capabilities in languages like Dhivehi or Pashto languages” (interview, 2021). According to Dulamkhorloo Baatar, finding the right kind of human resources goes beyond financial and skills limitations. The Mongolian Fact Checking Center struggles to find the “right people” with the “right mindset” to recruit as fact checkers: “It’s difficult to build a team, even when you have the resources or the money to [pay people a] salary. It’s very difficult to find the right people with the right heart and right expertise to be part of a factchecking team” (interview, 2021). According to Yudhanjaya Wijerathne, Watchdog in Sri Lanka uses volunteers for periods during which a higher amount of fact checking is required. This allows the organization to increase its capacity and work on more fact checks as the situation Asia – 2 2 5