TorWatch editorial policy
Michael Miller researches, writes and edits every page on TorWatch. There are no guest posts and no outside contributors. This page sets out how a page gets its facts, how news notes are checked, what the dates on a page mean, and how a mistake is fixed. How a privacy tool gets picked is a separate question, covered on the methodology page.
Where the facts come from
Each factual claim links to the document it was read from, and the link sits on the sentence it supports rather than in a list at the end. Most of those documents come from the people closest to the fact:
- Court and police records: indictments, sentencing releases, seizure notices and court opinions, for anything about an arrest, a takedown or a ruling.
- The project's own documentation: the Tor Project's support pages and specifications, Tails and Whonix documentation, Monero's and Zcash's docs, for how a piece of software works.
- Published measurements: Tor Metrics for users, relays and bridges, and OONI for censorship, with the period each figure covers.
- Audit reports and provider policies: for what a service has been checked for and what it says it does.
A news report is cited as a news report. When an article adds a detail the official document doesn't contain, the page says which source the detail comes from. The Empire Market sentencing note sets the Justice Department release, the local paper and The Record side by side for exactly that reason. Figures from police are kept apart from estimates by analytics firms, and the takedowns timeline labels each one.
How news notes are written
A news note is written from the official document behind the story: the court's or prosecutor's release, the project's blog post, or the company's statement. When a story has two sides, both primary statements are quoted. The note on the Tor Project and Mullvad quotes the Tor Project's post and Mullvad's own reply. A claim that appears only in a comment or a secondhand report is named as such, kept apart from what the documents confirm, and never written as fact.
When a case is still moving, the note says what is still to come and what the documents so far do and don't show, as the Empire note does for Thomas Pavey's pending sentencing. Every note is listed, newest first, on the news page. Darknet, Tor and privacy each have their own list.
What the dates mean
The "Updated" date under a page's headline is the last day its content changed. A new link or a fixed typo doesn't count. Facts that go stale on their own, such as a software version, a usage figure, an audit or an onion address, carry the date they were checked in the sentence itself, for example "as of 19 October". A guide built on Tor Metrics data says which day's data it uses.
Corrections
A mistake that changes what a reader would do or believe is corrected in the page itself. The new version links to the document that shows it, in the same sentence. A correction to a figure, a date, a name or an address moves the page's "Updated" date. Wording and typo fixes don't.
To report a mistake, email the page, the sentence and the source that contradicts it through the contact page. A newer document is what changes a page. A reader's disagreement on its own doesn't, though it is always read.
Money and independence
No company, project or service pays for a mention, a placement or a verdict, and no link on the site carries a referral code. The about page lists who TorWatch is independent of, and the author page covers who Michael Miller is and how to check his background.