StopFake

Key takeaways

StopFake belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect StopFake to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of StopFake from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The StopFake website is a project of Ukrainian media NGO Media Reforms Center. It was founded in March 2014 by Ukrainian professors and students with the stated purpose of refuting Russian propaganda and fake news. It began as a Russian- and English-language fact-checking organization, and has grown to include a TV show broadcast on 30 local channels, a weekly radio show, and a strong social media following. StopFake was founded as a volunteer effort, but by 2017 included paid employees on its team. It is largely funded by grants. It has received praise from other media outlets. In 2014 it received a BOBs award from Deutsche Welle and a Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute.

History The organization grew out of an online discussion between faculty and alumni of National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Margot Gontar (at that point a recent master's graduate of the Mohyla journalism program), Oleg Shankovskyi, Ruslan Deynychenko, and Yevhen Fedchenko (a professor of journalism at Mohyla Academy) co-founded the organization in 2014. The website StopFake.org went live on 2 March 2014. It was founded shortly after the invasion and annexation of Crimea by Russia. In its first four months of operation, its website averaged one and a half million visitors per month. In November 2016, the organization became a partner in the First Draft News network.

Operation StopFake opposes the spread of disinformation by Russia, focusing on information disseminated on social media. including through the use of digital tools. It produces StopFake News, a weekly television show hosted by co-founder Gontar only about fake news, and holds the standard that "[i]f fact checkers cannot prove that a story published or broadcast by another news media outlet is false, it will not be featured in the weekly airing". Following the allegations of Russian influence in the 2016 United States presidential election, StopFake began to gain international recognition. The site has been financed by crowdfunding, readers' contributions, the Renaissance Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy, National Democratic Institute, German Marshall Fund, the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic, the Foreign Ministry of the United Kingdom, the British Embassy in Ukraine, and the Sigrid Rausing Trust. In 2022 Fortune described it as operating on a "shoestring budget". StopFake started as a volunteer effort, but it had 26 paid staff members by 2017. CBS News reported in February 2022 that it was run by volunteers and journalism students. In April 2022 The Washington Post reported that it had 15 employees. In July 2020, StopFake signed an agreement with National TV and Radio Council on cooperation in monitoring and analyzing disinformation. StopFake is also a third-party fact checker for Facebook. Stopfake is part of the International Fact-Checking Network, run by the Poynter Institute, which sets editorial standards for fact-checking organisations.

Reception Olga Yurkova, the founder and editor of StopFake, was included in the 2016 New Europe 100 list chosen by the Financial Times, Google, Res Publica and Visegrád Group. The list recognises central and eastern Europe's brightest and best people. StopFake won the "Best Project in Russian Award" in Deutsche Welle's 2014 BOBs awards. The New York Times wrote in 2017 that StopFake "is highly respected in journalistic circles here in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, for its specialty of debunking fake news", and it "reported some of the biggest nonstories of the war" in Ukraine. Also in 2017, Politico stated that "the journalism school crew behind StopFake have emerged as the 'grand wizards' of the fake-news-busting world". Freedom House described it as a "gold standard" in exposing fake news, said that its work has become "a model in other Central and Eastern European countries". In 2020, The New York Times reported that despite its commitment to neutral fact-checking, as per Facebook's policy, StopFake was accused of bias in its work.

Zaborona article alleging ties to far-right groups In 2020, the Zaborona website published a report, co-authored by Ukrainian journalist Ekaterina Sergatskova, which accused StopFake of having links with Ukrainian far-right and neo-Nazi groups, such as S14. The report included that Marko Suprun, host of StopFake's English-language video program, had been shown in social media photographs at a gathering with two musicians from Holocaust-denying white power band Sokyra Peruna and another controversial band Komu Vnyz. The report also stated that the director and founder of StopFake, Yevhen Fedchenko, had tweeted in defence of S14 on one occasion, spoken against freedom of the press and supported the website Myrotvorets. Following this Sergatskova was subjected to online harassment from commentators and hard right figures, including death threats and posting of her personal information, and she left Kyiv, reporting fears for her life. The threats were condemned by StopFake. StopFake said the accusations in the article were untrue, calling the Zaborona article a part of a campaign of slanderous "information attacks" against the project team. StopFake said that the use of the photographs to allege far-right connections were employing "guilt by association". StopFake has subsequently signed a statement by media workers calling for a defence of Sergatskova from death threats. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba supported StopFake, saying that his ministry observed co-ordinated, systematic attempts by Russia to undermine the reputation of the fact-checking project. The Media Reforms Center complained to Ukraine's Independent Media Council (IMC) about Zaborona. IMC ruled that the Zaborona story violated three principles of the journalistic code of ethics and "groundlessly and biasedly discredits the StopFake project as a fact-checker, misleading the readers about the mechanism of interaction between the fact-checkers and Facebook".

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with StopFake

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what StopFake claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to StopFake before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about StopFake ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of StopFake

In research: StopFake appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses StopFake in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: StopFake is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2014 establishments in Ukraine, Fact-checking websites, Internet properties established in 2014, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for StopFake outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study StopFake in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what StopFake means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain StopFake out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is StopFake in simple terms?

The StopFake website is a project of Ukrainian media NGO Media Reforms Center. It was founded in March 2014 by Ukrainian professors and students with the stated purpose of refuting Russian propaganda and fake news.

Why does StopFake matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study StopFake?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on StopFake.