What we do
Watchdog is a multidisciplinary team of factcheckers, journalists, researchers and software engineers. We hunt hoaxes and misinformation, investigate matters of public welfare, and build software tools that help operations like ours.
We began in April 2019, days after the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, as a group of concerned citizens trying to counter misinformation. We did this amidst government crackdowns on freedom of expression and mass hysteria caused by fake news and rumors, building a mobile app that was used by over 200,000 people to verify information and counteract rumors in their own networks.
How we work
The primary face of our operation is this website and the Watchdog app, available for free on Google Play.
Don’t take our word for it: go see what people think.
We’ve been called an “open-source intelligence research collective”, and that’s fairly accurate. We use a lot of OSINT techniques - a combination of data scraping, analysis of publicly available documents and datasets, paired with old-school boots-on-the-ground journalism.
Who we are
The original incarnation of Watchdog was staffed by volunteer factcheckers and translators. We’ve grown significantly since then. Many of our team have strong journalism and research backgrounds, with a sprinkling of computer science to make sure we have the tools to keep up with our ambitions.
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
CEO
Data scientist and editor-in-chief. Formerly at LIRNEasia’s Data, Policy and Algorithms team, working on misinformation, information control, resource-poor languages and social networks. Bylines at ForeignPolicy, Wired, Slate. Forbes 30 Under 30.
Nisal Periyapperuma
CTO
SaaS engineer with a background in economics. Co-founded Paladin Analytics and rooster.jobs, growing multiple tech teams from one-person operations into enterprise SaaS companies. Builds and manages Watchdog tech infrastructure, including moonshots.
Minoli Wijetunga
Project Manager
Academic; research work at the University of Colombo (digital humanities) and University of Oxford (diversity and inclusion). Former editor of Groundviews, a publication by the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Aisha Nazim
Associate Editor
Mirror Award-winning journalist with bylines in Roar Media, Buzzfeed News, Arab News, Scroll.in, Seattle Globalist, and Ceylon Today. Former Communications and PR Manager at The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.
Mohamed Fairooz
Associate Editor, Tamil
Journalist with over a decade in the field; editor of the weekly Tamil newspaper Vidivelli; print and New media trainer; UN Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalism Fellow.
Nadim Majeed
Producer
Multidisciplinary broadcast journalist. Over a decade as a producer, TV anchor and reporter at The Capital Maharaja Organisation. Former Advocacy & Communications Consultant at Transparency International Sri Lanka.
Tineeka de Silva
Associate Editor
Editor, writer and communications consultant on award winning corporate projects with 16+ years’ experience in various industries. Consultant to the corporate sector, specialising in PR and communications strategies.
Umesh Moramudali
Researcher
Resident economist. Lectures at the the University of Colombo. Former researcher at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance. Ex-journalist (Ceylon Today) and founder of We Translate, a trilingual translation service.
Amalini De Sayrah
Researcher
Writer, researcher and photographer, focused on human rights and marginalization; bylines in The Guardian, Firstpost, Global Voices, FT Sri Lanka, and Himal Southasian; former editor of Groundviews and institutional communications at the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Ishan Marikar
Software Engineer
Software Engineer with a background in Cybersecurity. Formerly at RightApps. Specializing in Research and Development, Distributed Systems Infrastructure and Software Security.
Nishadi Gunatilake
Translator - Sinhala
Attorney-at-law and sworn translator. Works in the development sector (research and program management). Writes on occasion. Gender and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) activist.
Kesavan Selvarajah
Translator - Tamil
Final-year Software Engineering undergraduate at the University of Kelaniya experienced in Mobile and Web Application Development. Keen on developing a career that combines teaching and research while maintaining his interest in machine learning.
Nabeela Iqbal
WD's ex-Social Media manager
Peacebuilder and activist; Back in 2020 Amnesty International named her a young human rights defender in the face of the pandemic. Works in women’s and minority rights and loves using the internet to tell stories. Handled social media platforms for Watchdog.
Our funders
These organizations have given us money to do what we do.
Funder | Who they are | Why they funded us |
OCCRP (Primary Funder) | The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is an investigative reporting coalition that specializes in organized crime and
corruption, operating in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia and Central America. | To keep our regular research operations and factchecks running in English, Sinhala and Tamil. |
IREX | The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) is an international, nonprofit
organization that specializes in global education and development in more than 100 countries. | To design and deliver a media literacy and anti-misinformation syllabus for Sri Lanka. |
Contact us
Locked for now. We’ll open this up when we want to talk.