The Roadmap for Vasthavam

In the previous post, I outlined the vision behind Vasthavam (വാസ്തവം) and why Kerala desperately needs an independent platform for media accountability and political transparency.

To give you a clearer picture of where this project is headed, I want to share the detailed roadmap and the features I am planning to build over the coming months. The goal is to evolve Vasthavam from a simple fact-checking archive into a self-sustaining civic knowledge base.

Phase 1: The MVP (Months 1 to 3)

The immediate focus is proving the core loop works. The Minimum Viable Product will be entirely focused on archiving and submitting claims.

• Headline Submission: Anyone can submit a suspicious headline with an image upload. The system will permanently archive it in object storage and attempt to archive the source URL via archive.ph.
• Claim Creation: Each archived headline will be linked to a specific claim.
• Manual Community Notes: Users can submit context notes with required source links. These will initially be held in a moderation queue.
• Static Outlet Profiles: Basic background profiles for major Malayalam outlets detailing their ownership, political connections, and editorial policies.
• No accounts required: Submission will be anonymous to reduce friction.

Phase 2: The Trust & Scoring Engine (Months 4 to 7)

Once the core archive is functional, Vasthavam will become a living accountability system. This phase introduces user accounts and automated scoring.

• Reputation Ladder: A structured system where users earn points for helpful contributions. As users rank up, their community notes get auto-posted with fewer upvotes.
• Automated Community Notes: Replacing the manual queue, notes will automatically surface publicly only if they receive agreement from users with different political leanings. This cross-partisan agreement is our primary defence against organized brigading.
• Dynamic Outlet Scoring: Outlets will receive live scores across six distinct dimensions instead of a single composite number. These dimensions include Factual Accuracy, Correction Transparency, Headline Integrity, Context Accuracy, Political Balance, and Source Quality. Scores will heavily weigh recent behaviour so outlets can improve their standing.
• Basic Politician Profiles: Pages for MLAs and Ministers, listing claims linked to them and tracking their promises.
• Deletion Index Crawler: A background job that runs daily to check if outlets have stealthily deleted articles without issuing corrections.

Phase 3: Assembly Transparency & Pipelines (Months 8 to 14)

This phase aims to make Vasthavam the canonical reference for Kerala political accountability by integrating official legislative data.

• Legislative Fact-Check Module: We will build pipelines to process Assembly Hansard PDFs, automatically identifying factual claims embedded in speeches.
• Misinformation Pipeline Tracker: For each claim, the database will track the origin chain to visualize how misinformation travels from fringe social media accounts to mainstream news.
• Flip-Flop Tracker: A dedicated log on politician pages that pairs directly contradictory statements made by the same person over time.
• Automated Promise Tracking: Promises will be tracked against target dates and cross-referenced with new claims to automatically flag when a promise is broken or contradicted by actual policy.
• Evidence Level System: Categorizing evidence from Level 1 (official government records) down to Level 5 (anonymous social media claims) so verdicts carry proportional weight.

Phase 4: The Full Platform (Months 15 to 24)

The final phase will focus on accessibility, media outreach, and ensuring the platform's long-term sustainability.

• Malayalam-First Interface: Full UI translation, including transliteration support for searching in Malayalam using English keyboards.
• WhatsApp Forward Checker: A dedicated flow to upload WhatsApp screenshots and instantly receive a fact-check link if the claim is already in the database.
• Public API and Embed Widgets: Allowing journalists, researchers, and bloggers to embed Vasthavam verdicts on their own sites.
• Verified Researcher Program: Onboarding journalists and academic researchers to issue official fact-check verdicts.
• Sustainability Model: Implementing recurring individual donations and pursuing institutional grants from digital democracy foundations. Vasthavam will never accept advertising, political donations, or funding from entities it rates.

Join the Effort

The roadmap is ambitious, but it is necessary. If you are interested in contributing to the codebase, researching claims, or helping moderate community notes, please get in touch. We have a lot of work to do, but together, we can build a platform that reclaims the truth.