Gossip Cop would not discuss its future with I.F.C.N., whose signatories undergo a stringent review, or with Facebook, which has certified just five fact-checking outlets in the entire United States, including Snopes and Associated Press. Certainly the subject matter practice is different for a website that recently debunked rumors that Johnny Depp damaged his brain in a too-hot sauna, that Courteney Cox is obsessed with tarot cards and that Norman Reedus of “The Walking Dead” has a bad attitude on set (“Gossip Cop can debunk the baseless claim. It’s simply not true.”).

While giving verified independent outlets special license to fact-check may help embattled platforms like Facebook and Google help to restore their image in the short-term, in the long-term, as the Weekly Standard episode suggests, the same arrangement has the potential to do more damage.

Stormy Daniels and the Truth

In January 2016, Gossip Cop began deleting thousands of old posts in what seems to have been an effort to organize and clean up its archives. One of the removed articles, published in October 2011, concerns the now-familiar allegation that Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels had an affair. The rumor had appeared on The Dirty, an Arizona-based gossip website, and was later picked up by the celebrity magazine Life & Style, which ran a 2-page spread under the headline, “Did Donald CHEAT?” (The question was not actually answered.)

Two days later, Gossip Cop published a piece citing denials from both parties. An unnamed representative for Mr. Trump, identified hours later as Michael D. Cohen, described the rumor as “totally untrue and ridiculous.” An unnamed attorney for Ms. Daniels, identified years later as Keith M. Davidson, accused The Dirty of concocting a fake scandal “to lure potential customers to [their] commercial filth.’” Gossip Cop’s verdict: “The story is 100% false.”

“The only people ‘cheated’ here are the tabloid’s readers,” the story said.

Gossip Cop’s treatment of this particular story presents a broader journalistic quandary. Confronted with the question of whether Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels had a secret affair, the site did what most outlets would do: Ask both parties for comment and publish their responses. But lawyers and publicists are not always forthcoming about their own clients. Nor are the clients themselves. Indeed, around the same time Ms. Daniels denied the affair to Gossip Cop, she told other outlets, including The Dirty and In Touch, the exact opposite.

In the seven years since the rumor of this affair surfaced, journalists have gathered evidence of its likelihood. Federal investigators have indicted Mr. Trump’s former attorney, Mr. Cohen, over payments to Ms. Daniels and another woman, Karen McDougal, saying they violated federal campaign finance laws. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election spawned the inquiry into Mr. Cohen’s payments, has not turned in a final report but House Democrats, who take control of the lower chamber in January, plan to investigate the president’s role in paying Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal for their silence. Ms. Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against Mr. Trump, which could unearth even more detail, awaits judgment before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. (Representatives for Mr. Cohen and Mr. Davidson did not return requests for comment. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions to Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, both of whom advise President Trump. Neither responded.)