Cofacts

What Cofacts does

Cofacts is a volunteer-driven, open-source civic tech initiative headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, founded in 2016. The organization operates a fact-checking chatbot embedded in closed messaging platforms — most prominently LINE — that enables users to flag and verify suspicious messages in real time. Its core technology combines a collaborative fact-checking methodology with open-source toolkits that allow a community of volunteers and software developers to jointly maintain, improve, and scale the platform. The service is delivered to end users at no cost.

The organization is composed of a distributed community of volunteers and software developers who run recurring media literacy lessons and fact-checking training workshops. Cofacts is affiliated with the Open Culture Foundation (OCF), a Taiwanese non-profit that provides fiscal sponsorship, administrative support, and integration into wider open-tech communities (g0v, COSCUP, OSDC, SITCON, OSPO Alliance). OCF connects Cofacts to large-scale conferences, hackathons, and international open-source networks.

Cofacts operates as a non-profit civic tech project with no commercial revenue model, no pricing tiers, and no disclosed funding rounds. Growth is community-led through civic participation, volunteer recruitment, and replication of its open-source methodology across other countries. It serves the general public — citizens exposed to misinformation on closed messaging apps — as well as educators and civic groups running media literacy programs.

Name

Cofacts

Legal name

Cofacts

Website

https://ocf.tw

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cofacts is a volunteer-driven, open-source civic tech initiative based in Taiwan that operates a collaborative fact-checking chatbot inside closed messaging apps such as LINE, serving the general public and educators combating misinformation.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Civic Technology Software

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (519290), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Community/Group Chat Platforms (BPAMACAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Plagiarism Detection & Similarity Checking (EDAFALAA), Collaboration Security for Chat & Messaging (Teams/Slack) (HDADAKAF)

Keywords

• Collaborative fact-checking
• Misinformation chatbot
• Civic tech platform
• Media literacy tools
• Open-source verification

Headquarters

HQ city

Taipei

HQ country

Taiwan

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. Non-profit / Volunteer-driven: Cofacts operates as a civic tech project without a commercial revenue model. It is run by volunteers and software developers and relies on community participation, grants, and support from partner organizations.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

Cofacts is the first fact-checking chatbot designed to combat misinformation in closed messaging apps such as LINE. It operates as an open-source, collaborative civic tech platform where volunteers and software developers jointly verify questionable messages and conduct media literacy lessons and fact-checking training workshops to counter misinformation, propaganda, and fraud.

Product overview

Cofacts is a single unified product — a fact-checking chatbot and open-source collaborative civic tech platform. Founded in 2016, it operates as a fact-checking tool specifically designed for closed messaging apps, enabling citizens to verify claims and combat misinformation through collaborative fact-checking powered by volunteer contributors and software developers. The platform represents a specialized civic technology solution rather than a multi-module platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Cofacts Fact-Checking Chatbot The first fact-checking chatbot designed to combat misinformation in closed messaging apps such as LINE. It is an open-source, collaborative civic tech project that enables volunteers and software developers to verify claims through a fact-checking mechanism, primarily serving citizens who want to verify content they receive in messaging platforms.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Open Culture Foundation (OCF)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCofacts is listed as a community partner under the Open Culture Foundation (OCF). OCF provides fiscal sponsorship and administrative support for Taiwanese open tech communities, helping community projects like Cofacts run large-scale conferences, seminars, and hackathons, and connecting them to international networks.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Regional players

• Chequeado: Argentine pioneer fact-checking organization with a strong training and methodology focus; comparable in mission and Latin America presence, but geographically separate from Cofacts' Asia-Pacific base.

Broad incumbents

• PolitiFact: Major U.S. fact-checking outlet (Pulitzer-winning) covering political claims at scale; overlaps in fact-checking output but lacks a messaging-app-native interface.
• AFP Fact Check: Global news-agency fact-checking operation covering dozens of countries and languages; comparable in reach and institutional backing, but distributed via web/social rather than messaging-app bots.
• Snopes: Established, broad-portfolio fact-checking organization; comparable as a destination for users seeking verification, but does not specialize in messaging-app chatbot delivery like Cofacts.
• Full Fact: UK-based fact-checking organization that invests heavily in AI tooling for automated claim detection; comparable as a tech-forward fact-checker, broader in scope but organizationally more centralized.

Direct peers

• g0v (gov-zero): Taiwanese civic-tech community and a direct partner ecosystem to Cofacts via OCF; shared volunteer-driven, open-source methodology for civic-tech problem solving in Taiwan.
• Maldita.es: Spanish fact-checking organization that pioneered a chatbot-style fact-checking service inside WhatsApp, the closest direct analogue to Cofacts' chatbot-in-messaging-app model.
• Meedan: Operates Check, a collaborative fact-checking platform and shared technology used by multiple newsrooms and fact-checkers worldwide; functionally similar as a community-powered fact-checking pipeline.

Others

• LINE Yahoo Digital Safety / LINE Fact-Check: LINE's own platform-side safety and fact-checking initiatives; not a peer in the sense of partnership, but represents the platform owner whose policies and native features directly affect Cofacts' distribution channel.
• Google Jigsaw: Alphabet unit building tools (e.g., Perspective API) to counter misinformation and harmful content at platform scale; adjacent enabler rather than direct competitor, but sets the technical bar for automated verification.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/cofacts
• Facebookfacebook.com/cofacts.tw
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/open-culture-foundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cofacts