Voyons starts with the claim, not the conclusion. We evaluate specific factual assertions against the strongest available evidence and show the reasoning plainly.
We do not label opinions, satire, advocacy, partisan framing, predictions, or controversial viewpoints as misinformation merely because they are contentious. Nor do we assume a claim is false because it sounds conspiratorial. Where strong evidence establishes a consequential claim that is commonly doubted or dismissed, Voyons can publish it with a True verdict.
How claims are selected
A claim is considered for inclusion when it is factual and testable, has a clear Canadian connection, and meets one or more of these conditions:
- it is circulating meaningfully among Canadians;
- it affects Canadian public debate, elections, policy, communities, or institutions;
- it concerns an international event with material consequences for Canada or Canadians; or
- it is part of a recurring cross-border or global narrative that also appears in the Canadian information environment.
Voyons does not attempt to catalogue every false claim worldwide.
Selection is based on recurrence, reach, persistence, trajectory, public importance, and potential to distort understanding. We periodically review topic coverage to identify systematic selection gaps. This is not a quota system: the goal is not artificial partisan symmetry, but applying the same inclusion rules across political and institutional sources.
Separating the event from the claim
A real event can be the factual substrate for a misleading story. Voyons separates:
- what objectively happened;
- what was claimed about it; and
- what the evidence supports.
This matters because a misleading claim often contains a genuine factual kernel.
Verdicts
- True — the central factual proposition is supported by strong evidence.
- False — the central factual proposition is contradicted by strong evidence.
- Misleading — the claim contains a real factual kernel but omits, distorts, or generalizes context in a way that materially changes the conclusion.
- Unsupported — available evidence does not substantiate the claim. Unsupported does not mean “proven false.”
- Mixed — important components are true while other material components are false, unverified, or overstated.
- Context-dependent — the answer materially depends on definitions, scope, timing, or circumstances.
To keep the labels consistent, Voyons uses the same vocabulary inside Claim breakdowns. Supported is not a separate verdict from True; it describes what the evidence does. A component is labelled True when reliable evidence establishes it, False when reliable evidence contradicts it, and Unsupported when the available evidence is insufficient to establish it. Misleading, Mixed, and Context-dependent are used when one of those classifications is more accurate. The explanatory text can still say that evidence supports, confirms, or contradicts a proposition.
Confidence
Confidence describes how strongly the available evidence supports the verdict, not how strongly Voyons feels about the issue.
- High — the verdict is strongly supported by authoritative or converging evidence, with no major unresolved factual gap likely to change the conclusion.
- Medium — the available evidence supports the verdict, but an important source limitation, unresolved factual issue, or evidentiary gap remains.
- Low — the evidence is too limited, indirect, or contested to support a strong conclusion. Low-confidence material should generally not be marked Public Ready.
A source can be highly reputable while still being insufficient for a particular claim. Source quality and verification confidence are related but not interchangeable.
Evidence roles
Voyons separates two different questions:
Did the claim actually circulate?
Original posts, videos, speeches, screenshots, partisan sites, articles, or other public records can establish that a claim was made or amplified. A weak or partisan source can still be valid evidence of its own claim.
What establishes whether the claim is true?
Verification uses the strongest available evidence for the factual proposition. Wherever possible, the public check links directly to the primary or authoritative source so readers can inspect it themselves.
Source weighting
Verification evidence is prioritized roughly as follows:
- Primary authoritative evidence — official statistics, legislation, regulations, court decisions, election authorities, regulators, parliamentary officers, government records and datasets, treaties, original archival records, and equivalent primary sources.
- High-quality specialist or independent research — peer-reviewed research, established academic or research institutions, and authoritative specialist bodies.
- High-quality journalism and specialist fact-checking — useful for corroboration, context, provenance, or when primary evidence is inaccessible.
- Circulation evidence — social posts, influencer content, partisan sites, screenshots, speeches, and media items documenting what was claimed.
When a stronger primary source exists, a media article or fact-check should not be the sole verification backbone of a public-ready verdict.
Pre-publication evidence gate
Before a check is marked Public Ready, Voyons applies a minimum evidence gate:
- at least one Tier 1 primary-authoritative or Tier 2 strong independent/specialist verification source must directly support the material verdict;
- a source that only proves that the claim circulated does not satisfy the verification requirement;
- where authoritative primary evidence is reasonably available, it is preferred over media or fact-checking summaries;
- high-priority, high-reach, compound, Mixed, Context-dependent, or otherwise consequential checks should normally have two or more independent verification sources; and
- when one source cannot establish every material component, multiple verification sources are required.
A check supported by only one verification source should disclose the limitation rather than imply evidentiary convergence that does not exist.
Ongoing evidence review
The What would change our conclusion section is also a review trigger. Active claims are periodically rechecked against the evidence identified there. At least monthly, Voyons looks for new authoritative records, datasets, legal decisions, authenticated material, forensic findings, policy changes, or other evidence capable of changing the conclusion. If the evidence changes materially, the claim, confidence, verdict, and review date are reassessed under the corrections policy.
Multiple-source claims
Some conclusions depend on more than one factual proposition. In those cases, Voyons can cite multiple verification sources rather than presenting one link as if it proves the entire conclusion.
What we do when evidence is insufficient
A plausible but unverified report is not automatically misinformation. If evidence is insufficient for a defensible public verdict, the research record can remain open without being made Public Ready.
Voyons flags uncertainty, competing interpretations, and source limitations rather than resolving them by assertion.
Political and controversial claims
Ordinary political opinion, advocacy, spin, satire, and prediction are not misinformation merely because they are partisan or controversial.
Legitimate separatist advocacy, for example, is not itself misinformation. A fact check may instead address a specific procedural, legal, election-integrity, inevitability, or manipulation claim made within that debate.
Reach and amplification also do not prove persuasion or belief.
Geographic scope
Voyons is Canadian in perspective, not Canadian-only in subject matter. Public claims are labelled Canada, Canada-U.S., International, or Global, with relevant countries or regions recorded separately.
International or global material belongs only when there is a concrete Canadian relevance.
Claim trajectory
Verdict and trajectory answer different questions. A verdict describes what the evidence supports; Claim Status describes what Voyons is observing about circulation over time.
- High watch — the claim is receiving heightened attention because of reach, importance, rapid movement, or a developing event.
- Growing — tracked activity is increasing.
- Mutating — materially new versions, additions, or combinations are appearing.
- Mainstreaming — the claim is moving into broader public, media, political, or institutional discussion.
- Resurfacing — an older claim or claim family has returned after a quieter period.
- Stable — the claim continues to circulate without a clear material increase, decline, or mutation.
- Declining — tracked activity is decreasing.
These labels describe observed trajectory, not popularity, persuasion, intent, or truth. A True claim can grow; a False claim can decline; and high amplification does not establish widespread belief.
Why we examine why a claim is circulating
A fact check answers whether a claim is true, but that is not always enough to understand why it matters. Voyons also examines the information function of a claim: what interpretation it encourages, what debate it shifts, and who may benefit if the claim is widely accepted or repeatedly circulated.
We separate four things that are often wrongly collapsed together:
- function — what the claim tends to accomplish in a debate or narrative;
- benefit or incentive — who is positioned to gain politically, financially, strategically, reputationally, ideologically, or through attention;
- intent — whether there is evidence an actor deliberately created, selected, framed or amplified the claim for a purpose; and
- impact — whether the claim actually changed beliefs, behaviour, policy or outcomes.
These are not interchangeable. An actor can benefit from a claim without having created it. Someone can repeat a false claim sincerely. A claim can spread organically and later be exploited strategically. And heavy amplification does not prove persuasion.
When the evidence permits, public checks include a Why this claim is circulating section explaining the documented or evidence-bounded context. When origin or intent is unknown, we say so. We do not infer coordination, deception, foreign direction or motive simply because a claim serves someone's interests.
Claim history and recurring frames
Voyons also tracks whether a claim is a documented variant of an earlier claim and whether multiple distinct claim families repeatedly use a broader interpretive frame. These relationships are published only when the evidence supports them.
A Derived From relationship means there is evidence that a later claim materially developed from, narrowed, expanded, recombined, or revived an earlier tracked claim. Thematic similarity alone is not enough.
A recurring narrative frame is a broader analytical grouping. It does not establish common origin, coordination, shared intent, or falsity. Each factual claim still receives its own evidence review and verdict.
Review and corrections
Public checks carry a Last reviewed date and a Confidence level. Material new evidence can change wording, confidence, or verdict.
Genuine errors are corrected transparently rather than silently overwritten. Material corrections are recorded on the public Corrections page.