About Us

About Us

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.

image

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.

📎
These are our Operational ethics. Here’s how we go about Handling conflict - whether that’s related to a story we’re working on or an internal issue. Lastly, we’re known for our no-bullshit style (which tends to annoy people who expect flowery abstractions and vagueness), so here’s our Language guide.

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image

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.

image
image
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.

⚖️
Operational ethics
🥊
Handling Conflicts
🖋️
Language guide
🔏
Privacy Policy