How it works
Method and corrections
Trualo is automated. Nobody reviews items before they appear, so the rules below do the work. A label tells you who said something, never whether it is true.
How labels are assigned
Labels come from the type of the source and are set by rules, never by a model or by opinion. Only an official source can raise a story to Official, and official corrections or denials downgrade it.
Official
Governments, health agencies, weather services and scientific bodies on our allowlist.
Example: A WHO outbreak notice, or a statement on a national health ministry site.
Reported
Wire services and major news outlets on our allowlist.
Example: A Reuters, BBC or Al Jazeera story.
Sensor-detected
Machine data such as seismometers, satellites and weather models. No person has reported it yet.
Example: A USGS earthquake reading or a NASA wildfire detection.
Unverified
Everything else: regional outlets, social posts and unknown sources.
Example: A Reddit post or a small local site.
Disputed
An official source appears to deny or contradict other reports, or sources of the same class conflict.
Example: A ministry denial after a media report.
A sensor detection followed by a news report becomes Reported. The Disputed check is keyword based, so it can miss subtle cases.
What happens to each item
Fetch
Pulls public feeds and APIs politely, with caching.
Filter
Keeps items that match each topic’s search terms.
Group
Joins items about the same event into one story.
Label
Sets the label from the source type, by rule.
Publish
Updates the live feed and the “last checked” time.
How often it updates
At least every 15 minutes
Sources are checked automatically on a schedule, with sensor feeds checked most often. The header shows when the last check ran.
Every minute
An open page looks for new data on its own, and never jumps while you read. If updates stall, the header says so.
At the source
Sensor feeds update within minutes. News and agencies publish on their own schedule.
Loading the latest run.
Stricter rules for sensitive topics
Disease and conflict topics show headlines, links and attributed claims only. There is no model-written narrative. A number such as cases or casualties appears only if it is stated in that source’s own headline, and always with who reported it.
What the site shows, and what it never does
It shows
- Headline, link and source for every item.
- Numbers only as claims attributed to whoever reported them.
- A note beside outlets that carry official designations in their home country, without comment.
- A visible “last checked” time, and a line when nothing new has appeared.
It never
- Article text. We link to the source instead.
- Site-computed totals of cases, deaths or casualties.
- Names of patients or victims.
- Any claim that a label means the report is true.
Conflict data sets such as ACLED and UCDP are not used, because they carry licensing conditions.
Where the data comes from
Each topic has its own list of sources, kept in a config file. Google News and Reddit are used for discovery and are labelled by the real publisher or as Unverified.
Conflict and unrest
Google News (discovery)
Worldwide disease outbreaks
WHO Disease Outbreak News, Google News (discovery), Outbreak News Today, CIDRAP
Earthquakes and volcanoes
USGS, GDACS, NASA EONET, Google News (discovery)
Plague in Russia
Google News (discovery), Google News (official domains), WHO Disease Outbreak News, Meduza, The Moscow Times, TASS, Interfax, BBC News Russian, Outbreak News Today, Rospotrebnadzor
Sport
BBC Sport, The Guardian, RTE Sport, ESPN, Sky Sports
UFO sightings and strange events
Google News (discovery), Google News (official domains), Reddit r/UFOs, NASA CNEOS
Severe weather and wildfires
GDACS, NASA EONET, US National Weather Service, Google News (discovery)
Safety switches
Pause mode
The site can be switched into a paused state that tells readers to check official sources directly.
Automatic halt
If too many sources fail, or the number of events jumps suddenly, the pipeline stops and the last good data stays up with a notice.
Spotted a mistake?
Labels can change as official information changes. If something looks wrong, tell us and we will look at it.
Email a correctionTrualo is information only, not medical or safety advice. For health guidance see WHO, ECDC and HSE Ireland. For disasters, follow your national weather service and local authorities. See also the terms and privacy policy.