New Internet Plug-In Promises to Fact Check Political Claims in Email Forwards

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The upcoming holiday season promises lots of food, family time and, for many of us, awkward political conversations with loved ones. And you can bet that once your Aunt Suzy finds out you didn’t vote the way she expected, you’ll be receiving daily conspiracy-laden emails forwarded to your inbox.

But, don’t panic. There’s hope. A new plug-in for Google Chrome promises to automatically debunk the claims made in forwarded emails. LazyTruth scans the email for any information that FactCheck.org and Politifact have already deemed false and notifies you if something doesn’t quite add up. Not only that, but it will provide a link to where you can find more information — and then easily pass on to the original sender.

Eventually, the organization hopes to add other capabilities to the plug-in so that it can fact check things like urban legends and other email hoaxes. But for now, we hope it makes those tense conversations with Aunt Suzy a little more bearable.

Contact Brianne Pfannenstiel at brianne@politicalfiber.com.