Exploring digital solidarity economy in false information management: A case study of Taiwan's Cofacts platform

Introduction

In recent years, the digital solidarity economy (DSE) has emerged as an evolving framework for imagining alternatives to dominant digital platform‑capitalist models (Srnicek, 2017; Papadimitropoulos, 2021; Steinberg et al., 2025; Christiaens, 2025). Rather than a fully consolidated theory, DSE brings together diverse lines of inquiry and practice – ranging from platform cooperativism and worker-owned platforms (Sandoval, 2018; Scholz, 2023; Grohmann, 2023; Ripess Europe, 2023; Christiaens, 2025) to alternative digital infrastructures and solidarity-oriented platform governance initiatives developed at the municipal or national level (e.g. PIESS 2021-2023 of Barcelona City Council; Brazilian Secretary of Solidarity Economy). These efforts are grounded in commitments to democratic participation, shared ownership, social and economic equity, and technological self-determination (Hossein & Pearson, 2023; Barbosa et al., 2024). At the same time, they unfold against the backdrop of the platformisation of the economy, a global trend in which digital platforms have become central infrastructures of communication, commerce and more. This process has concentrated economic power and data control in the hands of a few corporations, creating dependencies that limit democratic accountability and exacerbate inequalities (Kenney & Zysman, 2016; Steinberg et al., 2025). It is precisely within this context that DSE initiatives seek to imagine more democratic, equitable, and socially grounded alternatives. While still in formation, DSE shows the potential as a valuable lens for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers seeking more inclusive, participatory, and socially embedded approaches to organising digital economic systems.

Seemingly unrelated to the above theoretical developments but central to contemporary debates, false information management has emerged as an urgent and contested domain in academic and policy circles. The widespread circulation of false information – through social media, messaging apps, and algorithmically mediated platforms, which echoes the commercial platformisation mentioned above – has led to diverse interventions by states, parties, companies, and civic actors alike. Although DSE theory has rarely addressed information governance as a domain of application, Taiwan presents a noteworthy example that invites such engagement. Cofacts, a community-led, open-source civic-tech initiative for fact-checking, reflects several core ideas of the DSE, including participation, open infrastructure, collective knowledge production, and non-market collaboration. To date, Cofacts has not been examined through the lens of DSE, yet this paper focuses on its potential to embody DSE ideas in the context of false information governance.

Against this backdrop, this study aims to answer the scientific questions: how can the core ideas of DSE be identified and evaluated within the case of Cofacts, a community-led model of false information governance? What lessons can be drawn from Cofacts’ experience to inform the broader development of DSE frameworks in new domains?

This study adopts a qualitative case study approach, centred on Cofacts as a locally grounded civic-tech initiative, to address these questions. It draws on two complementary methodological approaches: document analysis and comparative case reflection.

First, the analysis is based on primary materials produced by Cofacts, including platform documentation, public statements, and technical infrastructure descriptions. These sources are supplemented by secondary research on fact-checking and civic tech participation in Taiwan, as well as media coverage and public commentary on the platform. Together, they provide a grounded understanding of how Cofacts operates and how its governance model may reflect key principles associated with the DSE.

Second, the paper adopts a comparative lens to evaluate Cofacts in relation to other fact-checking mechanisms in Taiwan. These include (1) Facebook (Meta)’s third-party fact-checking programme; (2) the fact-checking mechanism of LINE, Taiwan’s dominant messaging app; and two civil society-led initiatives in different legal forms, (3) the Taiwan FactCheck Center (as a non-governmental organisation) and (4) MyGoPen (as a private company). While these mechanisms share the goal of countering false information, they are not grounded in DSE principles. Comparing them with Cofacts helps to clarify what is distinctive about a DSE approach and to explore both the strengths and limitations of applying DSE concepts in this governance domain. Taiwan is one of the democracies most severely affected by false information, facing widespread domestic circulation and persistent interference from external actors (Chen, 2021; Brossat & Ruiz Casado, 2023; Lai, 2024). This dynamic is also linked to the particular context of Taiwan and China, where the omnipresence of information warfare has prompted civic actors to experiment with autonomous fact-checking practices. In response, fact-checking has developed rapidly and now involves a range of initiatives (Lai, 2024). This relatively rich fact-checking ecosystem makes it possible to compare different models in practice.

Based on a case-driven analysis, this article argues that Cofacts can be read as a form of DSE-in-practice that expands the theoretical framework's geographical[1] and institutional imagination. In doing so, the case contributes to a more nuanced and plural understanding of what DSE might mean in the field of information governance. It offers an opportunity to feed the practical challenges encountered by Cofacts back into the evolving theoretical debate of the DSE framework.

To clearly articulate this argument, the remainder of this article proceeds as follows. First, “Understanding Cofacts: Openness, collaboration, and community-led governance” outlines the platform’s origins, operational structure, and guiding principles. Second, “Digital Solidarity Economy in action?” examines how Cofacts may be interpreted through the lens of DSE. Third, “Highlighting the value of DSE” offers a comparative reflection, positioning Cofacts alongside other fact-checking models to highlight the specific contributions of DSE-based governance. Fourth, “Limits and tensions” explores the challenges Cofacts encounters in practice and considers how these frictions feed back into discussions of DSE. Finally, the conclusion reflects on this case's implications for the DSE theory and practice.

Terminological clarification

Before moving on, it is important to clarify several key terms that recur throughout this article. Capitalist platforms describe infrastructures owned and operated by corporations that mediate interactions and extract value through data and market control, reflecting the logic of platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017). The collaborative economy initially highlighted peer-to-peer sharing practices but often shifted towards market-driven logics exemplified by companies like Uber and Airbnb (Petropoulos, 2017; Schmid-Drüner, 2016). By contrast, platform cooperativism (Barbosa et al., 2024; Christiaens, 2025; Grohmann, 2023; Scholz, 2023) proposes worker- or user-owned platforms, designed to counter extractive dynamics through democratic governance and shared ownership.

When turning to digital sharing practices, several concepts can help us analyse phenomena, including initiatives such as Cofacts. Closely related is the notion of digital commons, which denotes collectively governed digital resources sustained through open access, peer norms, and shared contribution (Dulong de Rosnay & Stalder, 2020). Benkler famously conceptualised this as Commons-based Peer Production (CBPP), where collaboration among large groups produces information, knowledge, or public goods without relying on market or state hierarchies (Benkler, 2002; Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006). In parallel, Fuster introduced the concept of online creation communities (OCCs) to describe self-organised digital communities that generate knowledge and resources collectively (Fuster Morell, 2014). Building on these traditions, civic tech highlights the role of volunteer-driven, public-interest technology projects, while social infrastructure refers to the institutional and organisational arrangements that enable participation, collaboration, and resilience (Biberman, 2021; Fan et al., 2019; Schrock, 2019).

Also, it is essential to clarify that this study uses the term false information to refer inclusively to both misinformation (false or misleading information shared without intent to harm) and disinformation (false information shared with malicious intent) (Aïmeur et al., 2023). This umbrella term reflects the fact-checking community’s practical concern with addressing a broad spectrum of misleading content, regardless of underlying intent.

Understanding Cofacts: Openness, collaboration, and community-led governance

Background

Founded in 2016 as a project within Taiwan’s civic tech community g0v (pronounced gov-zero), Cofacts emerged as a grassroots response to the increasing circulation of false information on private messaging platforms, particularly LINE (Cofacts, 2025b; Cofacts Community Note, 2025; OCF, 2025). At the time, Taiwan had limited institutional mechanisms for addressing false information. Cofacts was designed to offer a community-driven, transparent, and participatory alternative – built not by newsrooms or state agencies, but by a network of volunteers from diverse professional backgrounds, including programmers, designers, lawyers, etc. These contributors collaborated outside their full-time jobs, united by the civic-tech ethos of g0v, which prioritises open-source development and public-good-oriented innovation (Lee, 2024). The founding team embraced a "do-ocracy" model of collaboration, where each volunteer contributed based on their skills and interests (Cofacts, 2025b). From its inception, contributions were seen not as services provided to a client but as acts of civic commitment grounded in mutual aid and public engagement (Cofacts, 2025b).

It is also worth mentioning that Taiwan’s false information problem is closely tied to the influence of China (Bauer & Wilson, 2022; Brossat & Ruiz Casado, 2023; Chen, 2021; Lai, 2024). False information in Taiwan is often observed through the lens of information warfare, with cross-border false content representing a particularly severe challenge. At the same time, Taiwan’s politically polarised environment creates additional obstacles: government intervention in information control can generate significant distrust (Chang & Lin, 2024; Chen & Lai, 2023), while fact-checking conducted by large commercial platforms is not always trusted by citizens. For instance, Chinese-language content is not necessarily reviewed by Taiwanese fact-checkers. Against this backdrop, a diverse ecosystem of community-led fact-checking initiatives has emerged (Chang & Lin, 2024; Lai, 2024). This development is also deeply connected to Taiwan’s existing civic-tech culture (ARTICLE 19, 2024), which has long fostered volunteer-driven, open, and participatory approaches to digital governance. The rise of this culture of civic-tech collaboration itself in Taiwan is, however, also closely connected to the people’s concern for and anger over public affairs (Lee [李梅君], 2025) – anger that often originates from issues related to the China factor, namely the multifaceted political, legal, and socio-cultural tensions stemming from cross-Strait relations and the broader question of Taiwan’s international status.

Practice methodology of Cofacts

The concrete verification process within Cofacts can be described as follows. Fact-checkers are any registered volunteers, meaning that participation is open to all. Contributors may choose to remain anonymous, as the platform only requires a registered username and does not mandate disclosure of legal names. Any user encountering suspicious information online – whether through forwarded content, or news reports – can submit it to the Cofacts platform. Similarly, any volunteer may publish their verification or evaluate the verifications submitted by others.[2] Rather than issuing a single authoritative response, the platform allows multiple users to submit replies to the same message, which are then publicly displayed and ranked based on community feedback. Users can upvote or comment on replies to signal their perceived quality.[3] The goal is not to enforce consensus but to enable deliberation, allowing various interpretations to coexist while empowering readers to make their own informed judgments. Verification quality is maintained through peer moderation.

This community-driven model differs significantly from the standards promoted by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), which is based on a set of principles applied by professionalised fact-checking teams working within institutional frameworks. In contrast, Cofacts operates based on civic participation and decentralised contributions. Its fact-checking system resembles a form of CBPP, relying on the collective engagement of volunteers rather than hierarchical editorial authority. Notably, Cofacts does not impose any prior vetting or credentialing process for its volunteers – there is no formal system to validate their expertise, journalistic background, or fact-checking proficiency before participation. Nonetheless, the community actively promotes capacity-building by organising optional workshops, online materials, and events to strengthen fact-checking literacy and technological skills among contributors. Long-term contributors often become informal leaders in this ecosystem, helping set notes and encouraging best practices. Since 2017, developer meetings have served as the primary venue for coordinating feature development, debugging, and internal discussions (OCF, 2025). In recognition of the considerable effort involved in writing high-quality fact-checking replies, the platform has experimented with symbolic financial rewards for outstanding contributors (Cofacts, 2025a).

Importantly, this model does not eliminate the risk of bias, self-serving edits, or coordinated manipulation. Yet rather than trying to prevent such issues through centralised gatekeeping, Cofacts adopts a logic that all verification contributions, as well as evaluations (such as “not helpful” or “disagree”), are publicly visible and open to contestation. Users can respond to inaccurate or misleading verifications with their counterarguments and evidence. This creates a transparent, dynamic environment in which credibility is socially negotiated rather than institutionally certified.

In terms of methodology, Cofacts encourages verifiers to cite sources and include relevant evidence in their responses. However, there is no fixed guideline or professional standard that contributors must follow. The platform does not require that links or third-party references support claims, though well-cited verifications tend to be rated more favourably by others. The openness of the platform allows contributions from civil society organisations and expert communities with higher verification capacity. Cofacts has also collaborated with other civic tech groups and public interest organisations to share best practices and increase the robustness of responses. Currently, there are also no built-in tools for image forensics, metadata analysis, or AI-generated content detection, but cofacts.ai is already under discussion and development according to the community notes.

Structures

Cofacts’ technical architecture reflects a strong commitment to openness and interoperability. The platform’s codebase is publicly available on GitHub, and its structured data – covering both submitted messages and editorial replies – is accessible through an open API (Cofacts, 2025b; Cofacts Community Note, 2025). All content is shared under Creative Commons licenses, ensuring that it can be freely reused by researchers, educators, journalists, and other civic actors. In practice, this openness has led to meaningful ecosystem expansion: several civic developers in Taiwan have integrated Cofacts data into their bots, dashboards, and media literacy tools. Internationally, the platform’s model has been adopted and adapted by the Thai nonprofit Opendream, which maintains a localised version of the Cofacts system to address false information circulating via LINE in Thailand (OCF, 2025), showing its international impact. Cofacts also provides API integration documentation, and its implementation has been described as a reference model for chatbot-based fact-checking in Asia (Cofacts, 2025a).

From an organisational perspective, Cofacts remains small in scale and intentionally non-commercial. It has no formal revenue-generating model and does not rely on advertising or paid subscriptions. Instead, it operates through a hybrid resource model: ongoing public donations, intermittent support from public-interest grants (notably the g0v civic tech innovation award), and unpaid volunteer contributions (Cofacts, 2025a). Where possible, these resources are allocated to reward sustained participation. For example, through modest financial tokens recognising outstanding fact-checking contributions or covering travel expenses for event participants (OCF, 2025). In 2023, the core team established a legal entity – the Taiwan Facts & Technology Association – to formalise its structure and facilitate fundraising while retaining community autonomy (Cofacts, 2025b). Importantly, Cofacts deliberately maintains distance from both state-led information policy efforts and commercial fact-checking programmes. While it has collaborated with platforms such as LINE on data interoperability, these collaborations are kept at arm’s length and do not affect editorial independence (OCF, 2025).

Taken together, these features position Cofacts as more than a fact-checking tool. It is a sociotechnical infrastructure shaped by grassroots coordination, transparency, and open collaboration. Cofacts exemplifies how digital commons logics can manifest in information governance. Its open-source infrastructure, reliance on voluntary contributions, and non-hierarchical coordination reflect the principles of CBPP as articulated by Benkler (2002). Similarly, its community of users, editors, and developers forms a self-organised OCC in the sense described by Fuster Morell (2014), collaboratively producing and curating knowledge to improve the quality of public information. As a civic tech initiative, Cofacts is also rooted in public-interest technology, driven not by market incentives but by normative commitments to transparency, participation, and democratic engagement (Fan et al., 2019; Schrock, 2019). These qualities provide a foundation for examining how Cofacts aligns, explicitly or implicitly, with emerging theories of DSE, a task taken up in the following section.

Digital Solidarity Economy in action? Interpreting Cofacts through the DSE lens

After understanding what Cofacts is, this section explores why it can be understood as an instance of DSE, and how its operational model reflects key principles commonly associated with the evolving DSE framework. To make this case, it is first necessary to examine how DSE has been conceptualised in recent literature.

DSE as theoretical framework

DSE is an emerging framework that brings the principles of solidarity economy – democratic governance, mutual aid, and social justice – into the digital domain (Souza & Flor, 2025). As mentioned, while still evolving, DSE encompasses a wide range of practices including platform cooperativism, open-source infrastructures, and data commons. It proposes alternatives to extractive platform capitalism by prioritising shared ownership, participatory decision-making, and non-market collaboration over profit maximisation (Ripess Europe, 2023; Scholz, 2023).

Unlike the earlier wave of collaborative economy models, which often began with mutualistic narratives but shifted toward market-driven logic – as seen in the case of Airbnb or Uber – DSE emphasises the collective control of digital infrastructures, open data governance and the redistribution of value (Sandoval, 2018). It calls for not only technological openness but also social and institutional frameworks that sustain digital commons. Key features include transparent and democratic governance of platforms (OECD Local Economic and Employment Development, 2023; Souza & Flor, 2025), open-source tools as digital public goods (Ripess Europe, 2023), data solidarity and community-controlled data infrastructures (Prainsack et al., 2022), and redistributive mechanisms such as revenue-sharing or community reinvestment (OECD Local Economic and Employment Development, 2023). Building on these foundational elements, recent DSE scholarship highlights interrelated dimensions (OECD Local Economic and Employment Development, 2023; Ripess Europe, 2023; Grohmann, 2023; Papadimitropoulos, 2021; Platform Cooperativism Consortium, 2025; Souza & Flor, 2025): participatory governance, where users and contributors collectively shape platform rules and decisions; open infrastructure, where tools and data are made accessible as public resources; a non‑capitalist orientation, where services operate independently of profit imperatives; and distributed ownership and autonomy, where control is jointly held and insulated from state or corporate capture.

Rather than a single model, DSE is best understood as a pluralistic field shaped by diverse local traditions, including Latin American solidarity economy movements and European cooperative ecosystems (Utting et al., 2014; Seto, 2023). It has been applied in sectors such as logistics (e.g. Mensakas in Spain), home cleaning (e.g. Up&Go in the US), and cultural production (e.g. 1D Lab in France), as well as in the development of open-source collaborative tools and civic data platforms (OECD Local Economic and Employment Development, 2023; Souza & Flor, 2025). These diverse applications indicate the potential of DSE not only to counter platform capitalism (Papadimitropoulos, 2021; Steinberg et al., 2025), but also to reimagine economic organisation around principles of digital commoning and solidarity-based innovation.

To interpret cases as Cofacts through a DSE lens, this study draws on the analytical framework proposed by Fuster Morell and Espelt (2018) to assess democratic qualities in collaborative platforms. The framework identifies three key dimensions, with five subdivisions they used to evaluate the cases – governance, economic model, technological policy, knowledge policy, and social responsibility – through which platforms may reflect or subvert solidarity-based principles (Fuster Morell & Espelt, 2018). What makes this framework particularly valuable is its ability to illuminate both structural and normative dimensions: not just who owns or operates a platform, but how participation, transparency, and accountability are realised in practice. These dimensions do not merely offer descriptive categories; they operationalise core DSE principles such as participatory governance, collective ownership, open technological design, knowledge commons, and accountability to affected communities. By focusing on how power, value, and responsibility are distributed, the framework enables us to assess whether a platform embodies solidarity-based innovation, not just in its outcomes but in its structural commitments.

DSE in false information management: Cofacts and DSE

Applying the DSE framework to a new field presents both conceptual challenges and generative opportunities. So far, DSE analyses have focused mainly on alternative economic structures, whose outputs are typically tangible services or commodities. In contrast, the governance of information entails managing intangible, contested, and often polarised forms of public knowledge. This raises the question: can a model designed to democratise economic coordination be meaningfully applied to the domain of false information management?

This article argues that the Cofacts case can extend the DSE lens. The governance of information can and should be understood as a form of economic activity in its own right. As research observes, fact-checking itself constitutes a form of digital labour that demands sustainability and organisation (Grohmann & Corpus Ong, 2024). Fact-checking, moderation, and information curation all involve the production, circulation, and maintenance of a critical public good: trustworthy knowledge. These activities require time, expertise, infrastructure, and coordination. The case of Cofacts, which relies on volunteer labour, community, and symbolic or indirect forms of value distribution, shows characteristics that align closely with DSE principles mentioned. Therefore, false information governance is itself a kind of economy of attention, trust, and truth. Solidarity, in this context, goes beyond material production to encompass the collective verification.

Cofacts, unlike capitalist platforms that monetise user data and interactions through centralised control, operates on open-source infrastructure and emphasises community participation and transparency, diverging from the extractive logic of platform capitalism (Srnicek, 2017). While it shares some traits with the collaborative economy – such as peer-to-peer information sharing – it consciously avoids the market-driven drift. Instead, Cofacts aligns more closely with the principles of platform cooperativism (Barbosa et al., 2024; Scholz, 2023), with its community-driven governance, shared knowledge production, and commitment to democratic engagement. Although not a worker-owned cooperative in the strict sense, Cofacts embodies key elements of platform cooperativism by resisting commercialisation and fostering collective responsibility over information management. These points show the echo of the ideas of DSE.

In what follows, this paper uses the above-mentioned dimensional framework (Fuster Morell & Espelt, 2018) as inspiration to assess Cofacts by governance, economic model, knowledge policy, technological policy, and social responsibility. The case not only illustrates how DSE principles can be operationalised in this non-traditional domain but also suggests ways in which the theory itself can evolve.

(1) Governance: Cofacts exemplifies a participatory governance model, which aligns with DSE ideas. It decentralises authority by allowing volunteers to review and edit responses collaboratively. All editorial discussions and reply threads remain open, preserving transparency and cultivating legitimacy through visible contributions rather than hierarchical rank. Key decisions, such as feature development, funding proposals, and platform policies, are debated collectively in public forums. Although Cofacts is not structured as a legal cooperative, its governance mirrors the ethos of distributed ownership: no single actor holds exclusive intellectual property or gatekeeping rights. Its organisational form – as a non-legal, volunteer-based civic tech project – ensures resilience against privatisation or capture, operating entirely outside state control or commercial direction (Cofacts, 2025b). In other words, Cofacts does not constitute a legal entity and therefore cannot be bought or owned. As stated on its website, Cofacts positions itself as a “citizen-initiated initiative, unaffiliated with any political party or politician. Its outputs are openly shared, inviting collective participation in which anyone may contribute their skills and efforts.” (Cofacts, 2025b) In this sense, the notion of resilience discussed here concerns the organisational and normative adaptability that enables Cofacts to sustain its independence from state or market influence, while this paper recognises that potential legal exposure of individual contributors may nonetheless affect the continuity of participation, although such a situation has not yet occurred.

(2) Economic model: Cofacts challenges the capitalist platform economy by proposing an alternative form of economic coordination. It does not generate commercial revenue and refuses the standard platform playbook of ads, paywalls, and data extraction. Operating costs are covered instead by small recurring donations, occasional civic‑tech grants, and the unpaid labour of its contributor base. Such information and contributor names (or usernames) are publicly available in community documentation. Contributors engage in unpaid labour, but long-term participants are recognised with symbolic rewards and public acknowledgement. Cofacts thus redefines economic value through the lens of civic contribution, demonstrating that information governance, too, is an economy, one based not on profit, but on redistribution, public accountability, and infrastructural maintenance.

(3) Technological policy: Technological openness and embeddedness are central to Cofacts’ operational model. All backend code, editorial algorithms, and data schemas are published on GitHub under open-source licences, inviting public audit, modification, and reuse. This commitment to transparency and interoperability ensures that no single actor monopolises the technological core and fosters continual, community-driven innovation. Moreover, Cofacts strategically embeds its system into LINE, the dominant messaging app in Taiwan, while retaining its own standalone platform. This embedded infrastructure model not only lowers user entry barriers but also integrates false information responses directly into everyday communication flows (Cofacts, 2025b). It exemplifies how solidarity-based tools can remain autonomous while leveraging existing digital ecosystems to expand reach and relevance (Cofacts, 2025b).

(4) Knowledge policy: Cofacts embodies a civic approach to knowledge production and sharing. Fact-checks are not the product of closed editorial teams or algorithmic filtering; instead, they emerge from transparent, peer-reviewed collaboration. This open epistemic process cultivates shared norms and mutual learning. It also reflects Taiwan’s broader civic tech culture, where hacker communities engage in public-minded innovation (Fan et al., 2019; Lai, 2024; Lee, 2024; Lee [李梅君], 2025).

(5) Social responsibility: Cofacts positions itself explicitly as a public-interest initiative, unaffiliated with political actors and committed to open participation. It provides a model of public digital infrastructure grounded in mutual aid, community care, and democratic accountability – highlighting how false information governance, too, can be a site of solidaristic responsibility and systemic imagination.

These features highlight how Cofacts fits within the DSE paradigm, offering new resources for thinking solidarity-based governance in digital domains.

Highlighting the value of DSE: A comparative perspective on fact-checking models

This section compares Cofacts with several other fact-checking mechanisms in Taiwan to explore how the DSE framework helps to illuminate their respective strengths and limitations. Situated within Taiwan’s relatively rich fact-checking ecosystem (Bauer & Wilson, 2022; Lai, 2024), the comparison aims to highlight the distinctive value of DSE-aligned governance in the context of false information.

While government regulation of false information remains limited (Chen, 2021; Chen & Lai, 2023) – partly due to concerns over freedom of expression – Taiwan has a diverse range of non-governmental initiatives (ARTICLE 19, 2024; Chang & Lin, 2024; Lai, 2024). This analysis focuses on the other four cases in Taiwan: (1) Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program (TPF), (2) LINE’s clarification portal, (3) the Taiwan FactCheck Centre (TFC), and (4) MyGoPen. Facebook’s recently introduced Community Notes model, although not yet in Taiwan, is also considered a supplementary reference in comparison to the Cofacts model. These initiatives reflect varying institutional logics – platform-led, professionalised, and hybrid – offering a helpful basis for comparison across different models. The comparison could also be understood in the broader picture of platformisation. In the field of information governance, giant platforms such as Meta or LINE (in Asia) developed their own ways to address the false information ((1) & (2)). Meanwhile, others are developing the alternatives, creating their small-scale platforms, including the distinctive value of a DSE-based initiative like Cofacts.

Below, after briefly introducing each, the analysis focuses on four key dimensions inspired by the framework of Fuster Morell and Espelt (2018): governance, economic model, technological policy, and knowledge policy. While all mechanisms under review share a commitment to fostering a healthier information environment as part of their broader social responsibility, this study modifies the fifth dimension to examine “institutional logic,” discussing how they aim to address the issue of false information. This adjustment allows for a more apparent distinction between DSE-oriented models and other forms of fact-checking mechanisms. The purpose of this comparison is not to establish a hierarchy of effectiveness, but rather to illuminate how Cofacts’ grounding in DSE values generates a unique configuration of trade-offs, strengths, and challenges within Taiwan’s fact-checking ecosystem.

Meta’s third-party fact-checking program (TPF)

Meta’s fact-checking runs on flagging, tagging and algorithm adjustments (Andersen & Søe, 2020). TPF works as the core instrument for it: it relies on external, independent third-party fact-checking organisations that are certified through the non-partisan IFCN or European Fact-Checking Standards Network to review potentially misleading content, assign a rating, and attach explanatory labels on Facebook and Instagram (Meta, 2025). In Taiwan, where Meta partners with the TFC, MyGoPen, and Hong Kong’s Factcheck Lab, the TPF model has been relevant to the broader Chinese-language information landscape. The region’s complex media environment, marked by politically sensitive content and high volumes of false information – including cross-border influence campaigns – has made professional fact-checking a critical but fragile component of digital governance (Cheng [鄭佩珊], 2025). Despite being framed as an accountability tool, fact-checking under Meta's model is constrained by its commercial infrastructure: algorithms determine dissemination, platform discretion governs enforcement, and third-party checkers have no visibility into the impact of their work (Cheng [鄭佩珊], 2025). As the limitations of this model become increasingly apparent, the search for more transparent and participatory alternatives becomes urgent.

While the TPF has operated globally since 2016 – covering over 100 regions and languages and involving more than 80 certified partners – it is currently undergoing significant restructuring. In early 2025, Meta announced that it would phase out its TPF model in the US, replacing it with a new system inspired by X’s Community Notes. Under this model, selected users may annotate posts with additional context, though the platform tightly controls visibility and moderation (Meta, 2025). Whether and when this system will expand beyond the US remains unclear.

In sum, based on the descriptive introduction above, TPF operates under a centralised governance model, managed by the platform itself and relying on formal interfaces with selected certified fact-checking organisations. The economic model is platform-funded, with financial resources allocated to external fact-checkers who must meet the standards set by the IFCN. In terms of technological policy, it is a closed infrastructure system, where algorithmic processes manage information visibility, and fact-checking workflows are shaped by internal platform logic. Its knowledge policy centres on professional journalism, producing fact-checks through a non-public, expert-driven process. Finally, its institutional logic centres on utility and risk mitigation, aiming to maintain platform credibility and manage reputational risks through structured content moderation.

LINE’s clarification portal

LINE’s clarification portal has operated since July 2019 as both a bulletin board and an assistant account interface embedded in the LINE messaging app. The system collaborates mainly with local fact-checking organisations such as the TFC, MyGoPen, and Cofacts. Beyond the bulletin board information, users can forward suspicious messages directly to the LINE Clarification official account, which then attempts to match the content with existing fact-checks (LINE Taiwan, 2024, 2025). If a match is found, the verified result or related information is displayed; otherwise, users can submit the message to one of the partner organisations for follow-up (LINE Taiwan, 2025). Currently, the system does not allow user participation in editing or content generation.

Governance-wise, the portal adopts a platform-internal model, where verification processes are embedded within LINE’s technical architecture and mediated through formal partnerships with external organisations. Economically, it operates under the umbrella of LINE Taiwan, a major private communication platform with substantial market power and resources, positioning fact-checking as part of the company’s broader corporate responsibility and brand management strategy rather than an autonomous civic activity. Its technological policy is closed and proprietary, relying on LINE’s internal algorithms for automated content matching. The knowledge policy is informed by third-party professional journalism, limiting user access to the underlying editorial logic. Institutionally, LINE’s model emphasises accuracy and neutrality, with information framed to support seamless, trustworthy communication.

Taiwan FactCheck Centre (TFC)

The TFC is a professionally operated non-profit organisation. Its editorial team is composed of trained journalists who follow structured procedures and ethical standards to produce in-depth investigative reports. TFC maintains editorial autonomy, positions itself as a neutral and independent media watchdog, and is a certified partner in Meta’s TPF in Taiwan (Taiwan FactCheck Center [台灣事實查核中心], 2025). However, due to its professionally closed structure, the organisation’s background, operations, and impartiality are frequently questioned in online discourse, prompting it to clarify its position from time to time (T. F. C. Admin, 2021).

The organisation follows a professional editorial governance model that emphasises journalistic integrity and procedural discipline. Decision-making is centralised and guided by internal editorial standards rather than participatory or community-based mechanisms, which ensures coherence and accountability but limits public involvement. Economically, TFC operates as an independent non-profit entity, supported by public-interest foundations, project-based grants, and institutional partnerships. Technologically, it employs internal tools. The knowledge policy is rooted in professional journalism, producing publicly available educational content aimed at enhancing media literacy. Its institutional logic revolves around public service and education, promoting independent fact-checking as a societal good.

MyGoPen

MyGoPen began as a grassroots fact-checking initiative in 2015, initially aimed at helping older citizens identify scams and false information. Its name derives from the Taiwanese phrase “mai koh pian” (don’t be fooled). Over time, it evolved into a professional operation and was incorporated as MGP Fact Check Ltd. in 2019. Today, it provides a range of services including a public-facing fact-checking site, a LINE-based chatbot that supports text, image, and audio queries, one-on-one user interaction, and data analysis. While operating as a company, MyGoPen remains committed to media literacy and civic outreach, partnering with platforms such as Meta, Google, and LINE, as well as local education and anti-fraud organisations. It became an IFCN-certified fact-checker in 2020 and is one of Meta’s TPF partners in Taiwan (MyGoPen, 2025a, 2025b).

MyGoPen represents a hybrid governance structure, originating from a volunteer-based model and evolving into a privately operated initiative with more structured workflows. It now adopts a private company model with mixed revenue sources, including private funding and service partnerships. In terms of technological policy, MyGoPen uses a hybrid model, combining manual verification with automated tools. For instance, MyGoPen employs reverse image search tools such as Google Images or Yandex to trace where a picture first appeared and whether it has been reused in different contexts. It also utilises open-source tools like InVID, which automatically segments a video into still frames to enable reverse searches of each image. These tools function as automated components within a broader hybrid model that combines human judgment with machine-assisted verification (MyGoPen, 2025c). The knowledge policy focuses on self-produced content, emphasising user education through accessible and visual materials. Institutionally, MyGoPen follows a user-oriented logic, positioning itself as a practical, relatable source of information that aligns with everyday digital habits and familial modes of trust.

It is important to note that the fact-checking mechanisms discussed above are not strictly parallel or mutually exclusive; rather, they operate in overlapping and sometimes collaborative ways. For example, Meta relies on third-party partners for fact-checking assessments, while the LINE portal functions primarily as a content interface that presents results generated by external organisations. Neither Meta nor LINE produces fact-checks independently. Furthermore, beyond cooperation, the possibility of transformation in organisational form should also be pointed out. For instance, MyGoPen originated as a volunteer-based initiative but gradually evolved into a more formalised entity with professionalised operations. This trajectory illustrates the liminal nature of digital commons (Varvarousis, 2018; Moreira & Fuster Morell, 2020), wherein grassroots projects may shift across boundaries between informal and institutionalised modes, or between civic and commercial logics, while still retaining elements of their commons-based origins. Such transitions underscore the transformative potential embedded within civic tech ecosystems. Taiwan’s diverse fact-checking ecosystem has produced outcomes collectively that have attracted attention from international media and observers (Cofacts Community Note, 2025).

Through Table 2, this article provides a systematic comparison of the selected models.

*Facebook announced the beginning of the TPF in 2016 internationally.

Compared to other fact-checking models in Taiwan, Cofacts offers not only an alternative structure but also distinct democratic and infrastructural benefits that other models are structurally incapable of delivering, showing the DSE’s advantage.

First, Cofacts’ decentralised, participatory governance model enables a broad base of civic actors to engage directly in content verification and response drafting. Unlike centralised or outsourced fact-checking systems that delegate decisions to professionals or institutions, Cofacts allows the public to co-shape the fact-checking process. This inclusive structure does not merely reflect openness, it also builds legitimacy and responsiveness by embedding trust at the point of participation, especially in local and contested contexts. Other models, due to professionalisation and institutional hierarchies, may lack this grassroots sensitivity and flexibility.

Second, Cofacts’ economic independence, which is achieved through civic infrastructure and voluntary contributions, grants it a rare form that is not beholden to commercial incentives or state subsidies. While other models may face subtle pressures from funders or advertisers (Ferrucci & Nelson, 2019; Papaevangelou, 2023), Cofacts’ commons-based model ensures that its verification priorities remain grounded in public interest rather than institutional agendas. While these forms of power may be exercised through participation, they are also subject to public scrutiny and evaluation by other civic actors. Its financial model reinforces its commitment to transparency and autonomy in ways that centralised or market-oriented platforms cannot easily replicate.

Third, in terms of knowledge and technology, Cofacts stands out for its open-source architecture, public editorial logs, and accessible APIs. Unlike LINE’s system, where APIs enable authorised external projects such as Cofacts to operate as plug-ins within a platform-controlled environment, Cofacts’ openness constitutes the foundation of its own infrastructure. Its source code, datasets, and editorial records are publicly available and community-maintained, allowing users not only to connect to but also to co-develop and audit the system. While many platforms claim transparency, Cofacts operationalises it. By opening the whole verification process to public scrutiny and reuse, it invites users not only to consume but also to co-produce and reinterpret content. Unlike professional fact-checking models that deliver authoritative closure, Cofacts fosters a deliberative knowledge ecosystem where truth is negotiated and debated collectively, reflecting deeper epistemic pluralism.

Finally, Cofacts’ overall institutional logic breaks with the dominant framing of fact-checkers as neutral arbiters. Instead, it functions as a civic infrastructure for distributed truth-making, shifting the locus of authority from institutions to private individuals. This reorientation embodies a solidarity-based model that prioritises collective building over defined objectivity.

These features demonstrate how the DSE model, through cases like Cofacts, can achieve structural outcomes that other models often cannot: enhanced legitimacy through participatory governance, economic independence from market or state actors, epistemic plurality through open and transparent processes, and civic empowerment rooted in collective agency.

Limits and tensions: Practical challenges

While Cofacts exemplifies how a DSE approach can contribute to false information management, its operation also reveals a set of structural tensions that must be acknowledged. These tensions point to practical limits that any solidarity-based initiative must confront when embedded in digital ecosystems dominated by commercial logics. This section outlines these challenges, not to diminish the normative value of DSE, but to assess the conditions under which such models can thrive critically.

The first and most persistent challenge concerns sustainability. Cofacts is powered by a community of civic technologists, volunteers, and public-interest advocates, operating outside state funding or corporate partnerships. Its continued existence relies on sporadic donations and the goodwill of contributors. This model reflects a DSE value: independence from capitalist imperatives. However, it also exposes the project to precarity. Without stable funding or institutional support, long-term planning, infrastructure maintenance, and volunteer coordination may become difficult. This reflects a broader issue in DSE initiatives: while ethical motivations and collective sharing may inspire action, they do not necessarily provide the organisational durability that commercial platforms can secure through monetisation, scale, and investor backing (Luque González et al., 2020; Oliveira, 2024). The challenge, then, is how to translate the moral legitimacy of solidarity-based efforts into institutional sustainability. On this point, Cofacts rewards the editors from time to time as an inspiration system for the continuity of participation.

Second, the scope and reach of participation remain modest. Cofacts has integrated its service with LINE, Taiwan’s most widely used messaging platform, to broaden access and encourage user submissions. Importantly, this mode of collaboration does not alter Cofacts’ internal logic or operational principles. Rather, it represents a strategic use of a commercial platform to expand reach while maintaining control over content and procedures. LINE does not influence the substance of Cofacts’ fact-checking process. These findings intersect with critical debates about social and solidarity economy (SSE) diffusion and scalability. International Labor Organization’s research underscores that while SSE projects are abundant, their expansion beyond local or community levels remains poorly understood (Borzaga et al., 2017). Moreover, scholars caution that attempts to scale via market integration may compromise core SSE principles and that genuinely scalable models require broader shifts in social norms and collective agency (Colombo et al., 2023). The Cofacts and LINE’s cooperation approach may illustrate a distinctive form of DSE expansion – one where increased visibility is pursued through infrastructural cooperation, without compromising the initiative’s core values or decentralised mode of operation.

However, from the editorial side, according to publicly available statistics, Cofacts processes “only” 250 new message submissions per week, with “only” around 210 individual users contributing content. “Only” 12 volunteer editors actively respond to these submissions every week (Cofacts, 2025c). Cofacts openly acknowledges these numbers, describing them as “only” and regularly invites new contributors to join its efforts. This illustrates the limited engagement scale relative to the volume of user-submitted content. Participation in fact-checking requires time, digital literacy, and civic motivation – traits not widely distributed across all user demographics. In an attention economy shaped by frictionless interaction and algorithmic curation, inviting users into deliberative, time-consuming processes may limit mass adoption (Chen, 2024). Unlike commercial platforms that optimise for engagement and growth, DSE models, even though not as volunteer based as Cofacts, may be less immediately appealing to broader publics. Moreover, while long-term, globally distributed communities such as Wikipedia demonstrate that large-scale collaborative participation is possible, the regional, linguistic, and highly time-sensitive conditions of false information governance create a different context, making such forms of broad mobilisation more challenging to sustain.

Third, openness does not automatically produce inclusiveness. Cofacts is open by design: anyone can submit, edit, or respond to messages. However, structural openness does not automatically translate into broad demographic inclusion.[4] This also reflects a common challenge faced by spontaneous forms of participatory democracy: “everyone” does not necessarily represent everyone (Pateman, 1970). Active contributors tend to come from digitally literate communities. Barriers such as time constraints and technical skills narrow the contributor base. This reflects a more general challenge within DSE projects: the gap between formal inclusiveness and substantive inclusion. While DSE models aspire to democratise participation, they might struggle to overcome structural inequalities that shape who can engage. Thus, the risk is that solidarity-based initiatives may replicate existing disparities in digital participation. Cofacts has been trying to respond to the challenge of inclusiveness through regular volunteer meetups, onboarding efforts, and community-building events to lower entry barriers and expand the pool of potential contributors (Cofacts, 2025c).

Fourth, and perhaps most critically, is the question of effectiveness. In fact-checking contexts, this may point to the accuracy and factual correctness. Yet Cofacts deliberately avoids positioning itself as an authoritative arbiter of truth, like other mechanisms. Instead, it facilitates an inclusive and pluralistic fact-checking process, where multiple responses are presented side by side. This design choice reflects DSE’s emphasis on plurality and the participatory model. However, it also exposes a vulnerability: the platform does not guarantee the accuracy of the information it circulates. In a field where credibility is paramount, this openness can undermine public trust and raise concerns about the reliability of content. Although professionals can and do contribute, the system lacks a built-in hierarchy of epistemic authority. This raises difficult questions: can solidarity-based platforms ensure accountability and credibility without reverting to centralised, expert-driven models? And how should they balance the democratic value of decentralised knowledge production with the societal need for verifiable, high-quality information? These are the challenges that the current model faces, resonating with Fricker’s (2007) theory of epistemic injustice: in the process of knowledge production, decentralisation should not lead to the erosion of truth standards.

However, an alternative conception of effectiveness in the field may extend beyond the accurate identification of facts to include the collective, democratic process of truth-seeking. Through the lens of deliberative democracy, which affirms truth-seeking as a collective practice grounded in reasoned dialogue and mutual justification (Min & Wong, 2018; Lafont, 2019). From this perspective, Cofacts demonstrates a particular strength by embodying a model in which the pursuit of truth is not solely a technical task, but a shared civic endeavour. Such a perspective highlights that decentralised participation need not conflict with epistemic rigour, but rather, can enhance it when structured deliberation is present.

In sum, these challenges highlight the tensions that emerge when DSE ideals are applied in real-world contexts. Importantly, Cofacts does not ignore these issues. It has developed partial responses as reflective adaptations. It demonstrates examples of how DSEs may grapple with sustainability, scale, participatory inequality, and effectiveness when operating in the digital sphere. Although not as full solutions, by surfacing these practical limits, the evolution of Cofacts helps push the theory and practice boundaries of the current situation.

Conclusion

This study has explored how the concept of DSE can be meaningfully applied to the governance of false information through the case of Taiwan’s Cofacts platform. By engaging in a structured comparison with other fact-checking mechanisms, the analysis demonstrates that Cofacts embodies key DSE principles across multiple dimensions, including participatory governance, non-capitalist economy, as well as commons-oriented technology and knowledge policy. These features offer distinct advantages in fostering collective engagement and epistemic plurality, especially in contrast to more centralised or corporate-driven models.

At the same time, the study identifies a range of persistent challenges, such as resource precarity, limited reach within the broader information-governance landscape, structural exclusions, and tensions between openness and credibility. Rather than discrediting DSE models, these tensions illuminate its boundaries and adaptive capacities. Cofacts’ ongoing attempts to address these constraints, through community-building, platform integration, and transparency, illustrate the practical possibilities of evolving DSE ideals within digital environments.

This study contributes to broader theorisation by demonstrating that solidarity-based models are not only possible but also capable of offering novel institutional imaginaries for digital governance. In this regard, Cofacts does not merely apply DSE theory; it may co-evolve with it.