Suppress unsupported confidence
Confident language is not evidence — when assertive certainty rests on thin support, treat the confidence itself as a red flag.
- Score a claim by its evidence, not by how certain it sounds.
- Words like "proven" or "scientists confirm" without a supporting citation lower trust, not raise it.
- Surfacing a popular-but-unsupported claim and scoring it low is useful; presenting it as true is not.
- Match stated confidence to the strength and independence of the sources.
- Urgency and emotional framing are signals to scrutinize harder, not to believe.