Who’s Watching

The platforms have stopped checking. These organisations haven’t. A directory worth bookmarking.

QuackeryWatch.com · Posted 29 October 2026 · Canadian resources marked CA

How to use this list. When a health claim lands in your feed, search the claim plus the word “fact check,” or go straight to one of the health sites below. If two or three independent checkers agree, you can be reasonably confident. If none has touched it, ask a pharmacist or doctor before acting on it.

Health and science

Organisation	What it does
McGill Office for Science and Society CA	Joe Schwarcz, Jonathan Jarry and colleagues explain the science behind health headlines and debunk pseudoscience. Plain-language articles, videos and a newsletter.
ScienceUpFirst CA	National initiative, supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada through the Canadian Association of Science Centres, that answers viral health myths with short, shareable explainers. Good for sending to relatives.
Agence Science-Presse — Détecteur de rumeurs CA	Québec’s French-language rumour checker, with frequent health and vaccine items.
Health Feedback	Scientists rate the accuracy of viral health articles and claims and explain their reasoning. Part of the Science Feedback network.
KFF Health Information and Trust	US tracking polls on which false health claims people have heard and believe, plus the Health Misinformation Monitor newsletter. Includes coverage of AI as both a tool and a source of misinformation.
Science-Based Medicine	Physician-written analysis of alternative medicine, dubious clinics and the research behind them. Edited by Dr. David Gorski.
Quackwatch	Dr. Stephen Barrett’s long-running archive on health fraud, quackery and questionable practitioners.
SciCheck (FactCheck.org)	FactCheck.org’s science desk, focused on false and misleading health claims by politicians and influencers.

Canadian information-ecosystem monitors

Organisation	What it does
Media Ecosystem Observatory CA	McGill and University of Toronto researchers who monitor how information moves across platforms in Canada. In 2026 it reported that a small group of very active accounts produces most Canadian conspiracy content. Administers the Canadian Digital Media Research Network.
DisinfoWatch CA	Canadian platform that monitors and debunks disinformation, with a focus on foreign state-sponsored narratives aimed at Canadians.

General fact-checkers

Organisation	What it does
FactCheck.org	Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania. Non-partisan checks of claims by US politicians and viral posts.
PolitiFact	Poynter Institute. Rates claims on its Truth-O-Meter, including health and vaccine claims.
Snopes	The oldest of the online rumour checkers; strong on viral images, quotes and “miracle cure” posts.
AFP Fact Check	Agence France-Presse’s global fact-checking service, which includes Canadian items.
Reuters Fact Check · AP Fact Check	Wire-service fact-checks, often the first to publish on a fast-moving viral claim.
International Fact-Checking Network	Poynter’s association of fact-checkers. Its list of verified signatories tells you which checkers have met published standards on sourcing and corrections.

Misinformation and source trackers

Organisation	What it does
NewsGuard	Rates the reliability of news and information websites and tracks false narratives, including the “Reality Check” newsletter. Has documented Elon Musk’s amplification of health hoaxes on X.
Center for Countering Digital Hate	Research on hate and misinformation on social platforms. Its 2021 “Disinformation Dozen” report named the twelve accounts it said produced most anti-vaccine content online (Meta disputed the figure). X sued it in 2023; the case was dismissed as an attempt to punish its speech.
Institute for Strategic Dialogue	London-based research on extremism and disinformation networks, including health and anti-vaccine movements.
DFRLab (Atlantic Council)	Open-source investigations into coordinated disinformation campaigns.
Media Matters for America	Monitors US media for misinformation. It is openly progressive; useful for finding source clips, but check its claims against the originals.

Hate and extremism watchdogs

Health misinformation and hate travel together more often than people think — see our page on anti-vaccine and antisemitic agendas.

Organisation	What it does
Canadian Anti-Hate Network CA	Monitors, reports on and exposes hate groups and movements in Canada.
Southern Poverty Law Center	Tracks US hate and extremist groups through its Hatewatch reporting and annual hate map.
ADL Center on Extremism	Research and incident tracking on antisemitism and extremist movements, including where they overlap with conspiracy theories.

AI incidents

Organisation	What it does
AI Incident Database	A searchable public record of harms caused or nearly caused by AI systems, including chatbot medical advice.
OECD AI Incidents Monitor	Logs AI incidents reported in the news worldwide. It has already recorded the ChatGPT overdose case covered on our Wan v. OpenAI page.

A fair warning about watchdogs. Several organisations on this list — NewsGuard, CCDH and Media Matters in particular — have been accused by platform owners and conservative politicians of political bias, and some have been sued or investigated for their work. Treat any single rating as a starting point, not a verdict. The test for a checker is the same as for anyone else: does it show its sources, and does it correct its mistakes?

Related on QuackeryWatch

Who Turned Off the Brakes — how X, Meta and YouTube dropped their health-misinformation rules
The Chatbot That Wrote Her Taper — Wan v. OpenAI
Complaint directory — where to report a practitioner or product

Know a good resource we’ve missed, or a link that has gone dead? Let us know and we’ll update the list.