Claim workflow

Verify a social media claim.

A workflow for checking first-source traces, date, context, and possible reuse.

Passive and safe research workflow

When I use this

A post is spreading quickly. You want to separate screenshot, first source, reuse, and missing evidence.

What you get

Claim summary, timeline, sources, confidence level, and limits.

What I would be careful with here

The order I follow

Work through the steps in order.

Reduce the claim
Write what the post claims in one neutral sentence.
Opinion and claim are separate.
Find first-source candidates
Search exact text, image frames, names, and quoted phrases.
The earliest visible copy is recorded with date.
Check account context
Review public profile context and external support without private intrusion.
Private-life details are not carried into the report.
Write the result
Use verified, likely, possible, unverified, or false.
Counter-evidence and uncertainty are included.

Sources I open

What I can and cannot say

The claim should be reported with source chain, date context, confidence, and a clear note on what remains unverified.

Sources

AFP Fact Check
Verification and fact-checking
Agence France-Presse fact-checking site covering viral claims, images, videos, and misinformation.
Open source
Bellingcat Online Investigation Toolkit
Verification and fact-checking
Curated toolkit and guides for open-source investigation methods.
Open source
Bing Visual Search
Image and reverse-image search
Microsoft visual search tool for images, products, landmarks, and similar visuals.
Open source
Bluesky Search
Social media research
Search page for public Bluesky posts and accounts.
Open source
BuiltWith
Web history and archives
Technology profiler and historical technology lookup for websites.
Open source
Common Crawl
Web history and archives
Open web crawl corpus used for large-scale research and historical analysis.
Open source