Misinformation doesn't speak one language. Our tools do.

In 2024, the Oxford Internet Institute studied misinformation spread across 81 countries.

Their finding: the most dangerous misinformation wasn't in English. It was in languages that English-language fact-checking tools couldn't read. WhatsApp forwards in Hindi. Facebook posts in Swahili. Telegram chains in Arabic. Viral claims in Tamil that never get fact-checked because the tools don't exist.

Here's the uncomfortable truth about the current state of NLP fact-checking:

95% of fact-checking models are English-only.

The LIAR dataset — the most cited benchmark in claim verification research — is entirely in English. FEVER, the gold standard for fact verification, is entirely in English. Most production fact-checking APIs? English only.