Editorial Standards
The principles and requirements that govern every MAP editorial decision.
MAP's editorial standards govern how MAP generates and presents its records, how its founder decides publisher certification applications, and how MAP maintains the integrity of the MAP Verified™ system. MAP is operated by one person, its founder. Records are point-in-time snapshots written when MAP observes a URL, and repeat observations create new records. No publisher has been certified yet.
Independence
No advertiser, investor, or commercial partner influences MAP's certification decisions (none have been issued yet). Those decisions are made by MAP's founder, not by advertisers or partners.
Documentation
Every MAP context record documents observable characteristics of the page — publisher, author, date, references, framing cues — not claims. It is a snapshot of what MAP observed at that moment.
Reviewability
MAP's policy is that a certification decision or a context record can be disputed and reviewed. The process is documented in our Corrections Policy.
Disclosure
MAP discloses its ownership and revenue sources on the Transparency Standards page.
Timeliness
MAP aims to communicate decisions affecting a publisher's certification status to the publisher within 48 hours of finalizing them. This is a target, not a guarantee, and no such decisions have been issued yet.
Consistency
MAP's policy is to apply the same review process to every publisher, regardless of political orientation, market size, or commercial relationship.
MAP does not verify, score or rate content, and it does not arbitrate the truth of individual claims. Context records describe structural features of a single page. Publisher certification, decided by MAP's founder, would look at documented publishing practices — how a publisher sources, presents, and discloses — not whether any specific statement is true or false.
MAP does not remove or suppress content. A MAP context record is information for readers, not a takedown mechanism.