How it works

You don’t have to trust us. You can check us — and rebuild the whole thing yourself.

When a video tells one side of a story, we build the fuller picture on that topic — sourced, plain, and showing every side — so you keep your own judgment. Here’s exactly how we pick a video, how we build its page, and the rules we never break. Then we hand you the locked rule, the open logs, and the open code, so you can check any step or rebuild it yourself.

What the Library is

Most places online show you more of whatever keeps you watching. The Library doesn’t. It’s a small, quiet shelf of context pages you visit when you want to understand a topic — not a stream that never ends.

Each page takes one video that tells a story from a single side, and lays out the fuller picture: what the video claims, who else has looked into it, and what every side says — with links so you can check it yourself.

We’ll be honest: it’s early. Today there are 7 context pages, across a handful of topics. We add to it weekly, and a person reads every page before it goes up. It’s small on purpose, and it’s still growing. Browse the topic board →

How a video earns a spot

We don’t pick videos because we agree or disagree with them. We run the exact same five-step test on every video, no matter who made it or what side they’re on. A video has to pass all five.

1
It makes a checkable claim.The video says something with a real number or a named fact in it — something you could look up. Pure opinion has nothing to check.
2
It’s about a hot topic.The claim is on a fixed list of six contested subjects: immigration, the cost of living, crime and policing, energy and climate, guns, or healthcare. We don’t invent a fight that isn’t there.
3
It only tells one side.The video gives zero sources for the other side of the story. That’s the trigger — not that we disagree with it, and not that it’s “wrong.”
4
Lots of people see it.The channel has at least 500,000 subscribers, or the video has at least 250,000 views. Smaller voices get to speak without us looking over their shoulder.
5
We can actually add something.A real both-sides picture can be built, and at least one trustworthy source backs up the video’s own claim.

The part we care about most: the test never looks at who made the video or which side they’re on. To prove it, the code flips every video’s “left” and “right” label and runs the whole test again — if a single decision changes when the labels are swapped, the build breaks and nothing ships. We also cover both sides, matched: for each video we cover, we pair it with one from the other side, of similar size and style. (The full pairing system is a draft we’re still sealing.)

Every video we looked at — covered or skipped — is in the open record. See how we choose →

How we build a page

Once a video is in, here’s what goes onto its page.

Every claim gets traced to a source, and we mark how it held up — checks out, still debated, couldn’t confirm, or no source given. Nothing is left as just our say-so.

We show the whole spread of sources, lined up left to center to right. Each one is labeled for which way it leans and linked so you can read it yourself. At least one of them has to support the video’s own claim — that’s a rule, not a courtesy. We’re showing you the room, not picking a winner.

A short “glance card” sums up how one-sided the video’s sourcing was, and gives the other side in a single line. It never tells you the video is right or wrong.

Any chart is drawn from numbers in a cited source. If a chart has no source behind it, it doesn’t go on the page.

What we’ll never do

Some rules we hold no matter what.

We never tell you what to conclude. The whole point is that you decide.
We never blame the person who made the video. We add context to the topic, not the creator.
Our opening line never assumes the video is wrong.
Every page includes a source that supports the video — always.
Every source is named, labeled for which way it leans, and linked. No claim without a link.
We write it so a fifth-grader could read it.
We never use red or blue. A source’s lean is shown by where it sits and what the label says — never by color.
It’s a public good. There’s nothing to buy here, and nothing for sale.
We use only public data.

And here’s what makes those more than promises: a checker runs over every page before it goes up, and we feed that checker a planted “leash” — a page that quietly steers — to make sure it gets caught. A checker that can’t catch a leash is itself a leash.

Every context page carries this line, word for word: “This page describes; it does not prescribe. What you conclude is yours.”

The card catalog

Don’t trust us — check us

You don’t have to take our word that we’re fair. So we made it possible to check for yourself, three ways — each one a thing you can actually open.

The rule, sealed

The exact test for which videos we cover is written down and locked with a digital fingerprint — a sha256 seal — set before the batch ran. Change one word of the rule and the fingerprint changes, so we can’t quietly rewrite it to fit a result. Open the file and check the fingerprint yourself.

the sealed rule (SELECTION.md) sha256 7fffab53…

The logs, open

Every video we looked at and why we covered or skipped it — and every mistake we’ve caught or a reader has reported.

How we choose · Corrections

The code, open

The five-step test, the politics flip-check that proves it’s blind, and the firewall checker that guards every page. Copy them, run them, rebuild the Library yourself.

selection.py · firewall_lint.py

And it doesn’t stop at checking. Because the rule and the code are open, you can build your own version — copy the method, change what it follows, and run it to bring you the topics, sources, and people you care about. The one thing you could never change is how it’s shown: every side, every source, nothing telling you what to think. You choose what you see. You don’t get to make it hide the other half.

A flashlight, not a leash — and here’s the wiring diagram. If you build your own, we’d be glad to see it. Start with the Library →