itmedialaw.com regularly deals with the legal and practical reality of digital communication: reach, platform logic, disputes about statements, screenshots, contexts and the question of what is claimed as “fact” in the public debate and what is actually reliable. Against this background, a side project has been launched: InformationCheck.de – an independent fact-checking platform that focuses on checking claims from social media.
InformationCheck.de is an independent fact-checking service for statements circulating on social networks. The focus is on the classification of individual claims: What exactly is being claimed? What sources are available? Which elements are verifiable, which are unclear, and where are connections abbreviated or altered? The approach is described on the website as transparent, neutral and source-based.
The platform is expressly tailored to typical distribution channels – including Facebook, X and WhatsApp – i.e. channels where content is often shared in a highly condensed form and claims are quickly repeated or reappear in variants.
A central component is the fact check archive, in which claims that have already been checked are collected and made findable. This addresses a recurring problem: Many debates are not triggered by “new” claims, but by recurring narratives that go viral again – sometimes with identical wording, sometimes in a modified form. The archive provides a structured repository for this.
In addition, there are thematic entry points (e.g. “Technology & Digital”) that bundle fact checks by area. This makes it easier to find your way around when the focus is not on a single post, but on a range of topics.
The launch of InformationCheck.de is not a “law firm project” in the strict sense, but a side project alongside lawomate.com. The reason for this is the practical observation that many disputes in the digital space do not fail because of legal subtleties, but because of a very early question: What factual assertion is there in the first place – and what is it based on? This is precisely where a source-based check comes in, without necessarily involving a legal assessment.
This is a familiar area of tension for IT and media law practitioners: publications, reposts, quotes, screenshots and context shifts are often the starting point for legal reviews – for example in the area of personality rights, competition law (in the case of advertising communication), platform complaints or tactical communication in conflict situations. A structured, comprehensible collection and classification of allegations can serve as a preliminary stage here before any thought is given to claims, proceedings or tactical steps.
InformationCheck.de is designed in such a way that participation expands the coverage: references, topic suggestions, claims that are to be checked, as well as supplementary sources that enable or clarify a classification. The visibility of the project also means that content is shared – not as an “opinion statement”, but as a reference to a documented classification.
Anyone wishing to test or support the platform can access it directly at informationcheck.de and in the fact check archive.
Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.
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