Meme Fact Check

Ever scrolled past a meme and thought, “Wait… is that even true?” Upload a meme, extract the claim with AI, and get a fun credibility score. MemeFact helps you spot truth vs. fiction in viral posts.

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MemeFact – The Truth Behind the Meme

Inspiration

Scrolling through social media, we kept seeing memes that looked convincing but felt a little too good (or bad) to be true. It made us wonder—what if there were an easy way to fact-check memes? That curiosity (and our love for a good challenge) inspired MemeFact: a simple tool that lets people upload meme images and quickly verify if the information is actually legit.

What it does

MemeFact takes an image of a meme, pulls out the text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), identifies the main claim using NLP (Natural Language Processing), and then fact-checks that claim using the Sonar API from Perplexity AI. It displays a credibility score from 0–100, color-coded for visual impact, and gives users a plain-English summary of whether the meme's claim holds up or not.

How we built it

  • Frontend: Built with React and styled using TailwindCSS
  • OCR: Tesseract.js to extract text from the uploaded image
  • Claim Extraction: Used compromise (NLP library) to isolate the core statement from the OCR text
  • Fact-Checking: Queried the Sonar API, which returns a fact-check response
  • Scoring: Developed a custom logic to assign a credibility score (False = 20, Partially True = 50, True = 90)
  • UX: Interactive UI with image preview, loading states, and a clean result display

Challenges we ran into

  • OCR noise: Meme images often had weird fonts, filters, or low contrast—Tesseract struggled with accuracy at times
  • Extracting meaningful claims: We had to experiment with NLP heuristics and fallback methods to get usable results
  • Sonar API limits: We ran into rate limits and occasional API timeouts, which we handled with error catchers and graceful fallbacks
  • Making it user-friendly: We had to simplify a pretty complex backend pipeline into one click for the end user

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a fully working pipeline from meme upload to automated fact-checking
  • Designed an intuitive UI that feels fun and doesn’t overwhelm the user
  • Developed a smart scoring system that makes fact-checking more engaging
  • Turned a casual idea into a working tool in a short timeframe

What we learned

  • How to combine OCR, NLP, and fact-checking APIs into a seamless React app
  • Ways to improve text accuracy in image processing
  • Building fallback logic to keep UX smooth even when APIs fail
  • The importance of clarity and fun in credibility-focused tools

What’s next for MemeFact Check

  • Chrome Extension: Let users right-click any meme to check it instantly
  • Mobile Version: Make the tool responsive and launchable from Instagram or WhatsApp
  • Meme Archive: Let users browse previously fact-checked memes
  • Community Score: Combine AI verdict with human voting for better trust
  • Social Sharing: Export results as Instagram/Twitter cards to raise awareness

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