MFCC, which is operated by the Nest Center for Journalism Innovation and Development, launched Mongolia’s first fact-checking tipline on Messenger in May. The tipline features MFCC chatbot Asuu, and it is powered by Check. Asuu’s goal is to collect questions about misinformation from members of the public while also distributing verified content back to them.

As part of the group’s efforts to head off misinformation in the run-up to the June 28 elections, several media organizations have joined together to form the Facts First Mongolia coalition.

MFCC will directly operate the sole tipline in the coalition while all partner organizations participating in Facts First Mongolia will gain access to incoming submissions from the tipline and share their own fact-checks, explainers, articles, and other forms of verified content with one another — and with the MFCC tipline audience. 

Building a network to uncover misinformation and promote the truth

Facts First Mongolia is a network of media, civil society, and legal groups working together to distribute verified information to the Mongolian public through the Asuu chatbot and various social media platforms. As part of these efforts, several leading newsrooms in Mongolia — such as unnu.news, Lemon Press, Zuunii Medee, GoGo Mongolia, and iToim — have partnered with MFCC under the FactsFirstMN banner.

Participating groups will use the Check platform to share election-related content with each other, allowing them to create a vast pool of articles that can be disseminated to tipline users by Asuu or shared on social media. Partners will also be able to monitor misinformation queries shared by tipline users to find out which topics are circulating in the public.

This collaboration model is inspired by #FactsFirstPH, a successful partnership launched by Rappler, Meedan, and the Google News Initiative in the Philippines during the May 2022 presidential elections.

Meedan is excited to be able to support the coalition and to set up infrastructure for collaboration among these fact-checkers and newsrooms as they work to address election-related misinformation. This kind of teamwork is crucial for providing verified information to voters and the public — during and beyond elections.  

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