About us
- Table of Contents:
- Our Mission
- Our Model
- How to Contribute
- Our Truth Scale
- Our Team
- Our methodology
- Finances
- The Platform's Name
Our Mission
Dignitas is a collaborative platform where you can analyze the truth value of statements from Romanian politicians.
We believe that people's interest in the affairs of the city is an essential manifestation of freedom. If we perceive our laws as a set of external rules handed down by a remote political class, then we will consider them an impingement on our freedom. If instead we perceive laws as being ours, commonly adopted and refined, then we will obey them without feeling that our freedom is restricted.
That is why our interest in our politicians' conduct is direct and continous. Dignitas encourages you to follow the politicians (members of parliament, ministers, local authorities), to analyze their statements and to scold them when they lie. This is how we handle other people in our lives, be it family members, friends, colleagues or handymen.
Our Model
Politicians are numerous. Romania's fate is decided at central and local levels by the president, by the government, by the parliament, by mayors, by county and local councils. We feel that Dignitas's mission is too vast for a handful of people. Therefore, unlike other fact checking websites, we chose a collaborative model. For instance, a few enthusiasts from a given town can monitor the statements of the local authorities, which have considerable impact over life in that town. This job would be much harder for someone not living in that town, unfamiliar with the local realities and lacking easy access to public information concerning the town.
Specifically, we adopted a model similar to Stack Overflow. As you participate in the Dignitas community by voting, commenting and adding statements and answers, you will earn reputation in recognition of your efforts.
How to Contribute
After you create an account, you can start adding public figures and their statements, as well as fact checking statements already on the site. Your contributions will appear on the website immediately. A moderator will later examine them and, if necessary, suggest improvements in contents and formatting.
Make sure that the statements (or promises) you want to add meet the Dignitas criteria:
- attribution: it must be easy to verify that the person actually made the statement;
- notability: the statement is made by a Romanian politician who holds (or has held) a public office;
- official quality: the statement is made only in the discharge of people's official duties (including on social networks);
- impact: the statement is related to the quality of life of citizens;
- verifiability: the statement must be able to be confirmed or refuted, at least in part, on the basis of data and facts.
If you are not sure that the statement you want to add meets the Dignitas criteria, then send us a message at contact@dignitas.ro and we will take care of that statement.
Our Truth Scale
Dignitas gives one of the following verdicts to fact-checked statements. For details, please visit the Verdicts and proofs help page.
- None: The statement has not yet received an answer that establishes a truth value convincingly.
- Undecidable: There is insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the statement.
- False: The statement is demonstrably false.
- Mostly false: The main statement is demonstrably false, but some secondary elements may be true.
- Mixed: The statement contains significant proportions of true and false elements and does not fit in other categories.
- Mostly true: The main statement is demonstrably true, but some secondary elements may be false.
- True: The statement is demonstrably true.
Our Team
The Dignitas project (the website and the blog with the same name) is founded and developed by Cătălin Frâncu (programmer) and Sonia Frâncu (UX, UI).
Cătălin Frâncu is a software engineer by profession and has worked on civic projects for over 20 years (dexonline.ro being the most notable). In 2019, he started coding at the Dignitas website. Since 2022, he has been a computer science professor at Nerdvana 2.0 (Bucharest). In his free time, he is a moderator at Dignitas.
Sonia Frâncu is a programmer by profession and worked in IT until 2019, when she started coding at the Dignitas website. She contributed to civic projects (such as dexonline.ro) between 2011-2022, on the UX/UI side. Since 2022, she has been a permanent contributor to Dignitas.
The founders of the Dignitas project are not members of any political party and are not affiliated with any political party. They do not officially support any political party, politician, candidate or political advocacy group.
The editorial team is made up of Dignitas moderators: Cătălin Frâncu and Sonia Frâncu.
The website contents (statements and their analyses) is created by users like yourself. The verdict of a statement (the truth value of an analyzed statement) is given only by the moderators.
Our methodology
Our political fact-checking activity is governed by the following principles:
- Impartiality and fairness
- Transparency and standards for sources used
- Transparency for our funding and affiliations
- Commitment to methodological standards and transparency
- Transparent and honest rectification policy
Finances
We started writing the code for this project in 2019. We formally launched Dignitas in 2020. During the period 2019-2024, Dignitas had no form of material funding and no expenses (accounting or otherwise). This project was hosted from the beginning on the computer in our office (and has not yet left home).
At the end of 2024, we created a non-governmental organization (NGO), non-profit, to administer the Dignitas project. This NGO is called Zero Lies Association (Romanian: Asociația Zero Minciuni) and is registered with ANAF (National Tax Administration Agency) with fiscal number CIF 50914110.
The annual fiscal balances of our NGO are published here.
In the years 2024-2025, our NGO was financially supported exclusively from donations made by its founders (Cătălin Frâncu and Sonia Frâncu). The expenses were minimal: the NGO’s monthly accounting and advertising campaigns through Google Ads for online promotion of the Dignitas project.
Currently, Dignitas accepts monetary donations to the Zero Lies Association account. See here what we use the money raised for and how you can donate online.
The Dignitas project and the Zero Lies Association are not supported or funded by any political party, politician or political candidate. We do not accept money (or any other type of support) to decide the truth value of the statements/promises/changes of mind that we verify.
The Platform's Name
In ancient Rome, dignitas was a virtue with an elusive definition, a mix of dignity, prestige, influence and uprightness. We chose this name because, in the long run, we wish to become more than a collection of statements and truth values. From this ephemeral data we can build a permanent image of the true measure of each politician.