Over the last few years, and particularly since the terrorist attacks in France, the general public has learned to be wary of the conspiracy rumours and theories that spread over social networks. The rumour and hoax busting work of Les Décodeurs during the attacks of November 13 has been highly praised and gathered massive readership, proving a growing demand among French readers.

To meet this demand in time for the American and French presidential elections, Le Monde plans to build a Web service that will let Internet users submit a URL, a text or an image to check if it can be found in Les Décodeurs’ database and has already been screened by the team. The service will respond with links to previous articles dealing with the subject, an indication of the relevance of the source, and previous occurrences of the image.