FactCheck AI

Inspiration

In today's digital age, misinformation spreads faster than wildfire across social media and news platforms. From health myths during the pandemic to conspiracy theories democracy, false information has real-world consequences. I was inspired to create FactCheckAI after witnessing how difficult it is for everyday users to verify claims they encounter online. While professional fact-checkers do excellent work, they can't keep pace with the volume of content shared daily. I wanted to democratize fact-checking by putting AI-powered verification tools directly in everyone's hands.

What it does

FactCheckAI is a web application that instantly fact-checks news claims and articles using advanced AI technology. Users can either paste a text claim (like "vaccines cause autism") or submit an article URL for analysis. The system extracts content, cross-references multiple reliable sources, and provides a clear verdict (True, False, Misleading, or Mixed) with detailed explanations and source citations. Users can then download professional PDF reports of the fact-check results for sharing or offline reference.

How we built it

I built FactCheckAI using Next.js and React with TypeScript for a robust frontend experience. For AI integration, I used Perplexity API as the primary fact-checking service with Anthropic's Claude as a backup. The content extraction system uses Cheerio to parse HTML from article URLs with multiple fallback strategies. PDF generation is handled client-side using jsPDF to create professional reports with proper formatting and pagination

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was ensuring reliable AI responses since APIs sometimes return inconsistent formats or fail entirely. I solved this by implementing a dual-API fallback system with robust error handling. Extracting clean content from various website structures proved tricky, requiring multiple parsing strategies for different HTML layouts. Creating a trustworthy user interface was also challenging - the design needed to look professional enough for users to trust it with important information.

What's next for FactCheck AI

The roadmap for FactCheckAI includes several exciting enhancements: developing a browser extension for real-time fact-checking as users browse, adding batch processing capabilities for multiple articles, implementing community features where users can rate and discuss fact-checks, and creating mobile apps for on-the-go verification. I also plan to add support for more AI models, improve content extraction accuracy, and potentially offer a public API for third-party integrations. The ultimate goal is to make FactCheckAI the go-to tool for anyone wanting to verify information quickly and reliably.

Built With

• anthropic
• jspdf
• nextjs
• perplexity