How Daylight Commons works

What the extension reads, where each sign comes from, what leaves your browser, and how anyone can check a receipt without us.

Updated 2026-10-23.

Daylight Commons is a browser extension. Rest the pointer on a reply on X, Reddit, YouTube, Bluesky, Mastodon and a few other sites, and a window opens beside it. The window shows where the platform places the account, signs of coordination, how the post argues, and who stands behind a linked outlet. Each sign names its source, so you can open it and judge for yourself.

A reply goes from the page to the reader, the rules and the window, all inside your browser. Evidence lookups leave the browser only on your click; their answers become receipts in a chain you can save, and anyone can check that chain offline.
Inside the line stays on your device. The dashed paths run only after you turn a feature on and click.

The path a reply takes

Everything up to the window happens in your browser. The reader takes only what the site already shows you, and what the site discloses about accounts. The rules turn that into signs, and the same words count the same whichever side they target.

Two features reach further, and only after you turn them on and click. Evidence lookups send the repository names and web domains a post links to GitHub, rdap.org and the Internet Archive. Other coverage reads the news feeds of outlets you chose and sends nothing from the page. Each says what it sends and to whom before the first use.

Receipts you can check without us

Click an evidence lookup and the answer comes back as a receipt: what the source said, its address, the time, and a hash of the answer. Each receipt joins a hash chain in your browser, with a Merkle root over the chain and a proof for each receipt. "Save evidence chain" downloads the whole chain as one file.

Hand that file to anyone. They can check it offline, with the command line tool or the Analyse a file page inside the extension. Change one receipt, drop one or swap two, and the check fails. A pass tells you the chain is the one this browser recorded. To know whether a source was right, open the source the receipt names.

Watch it

Install, a page, a reply's window, its evidence, a lookup's receipts, and the saved chain checked offline, in under two minutes, on synthetic pages where every account is invented.

What each finding shows

Each still is the installed extension on a made-up page. Every account in them is invented.

Place

Place: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
Where the platform places the account, and a sign when a reply speaks as a local of somewhere else (here, "Here in France" from an account X labels Nigeria).

Treat it as a lead. The label follows the connection, so a VPN or a trip moves it, and people abroad still talk about home.

Account

Account: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
The account's age and renames, as the platform discloses them.

Plenty of real people sign up during a news event, so age is one sign among several.

Posting

Posting: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
How the account posts: the app it posts from, its hours, its rate.

News desks, brands and busy people schedule posts too.

Coordination

Coordination: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
The same text from several accounts in one thread, with the accounts it matched.

Matching text shows the words were copied. Open the matched accounts to see who sent them.

Language

Language: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
Dehumanising language and calls for violence, with the words that matched and the sign's measured precision.

The sign describes the words in this post. A quote, a joke or a news report can match too.

Fact-checked claims

Fact-checked claims: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
A claim a fact-checker already reviewed, with their rating in their own words and a link.

The rating belongs to the claim the fact-checker reviewed. Open their link and compare the wording with this post.

Sources

Sources: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
Who owns a linked outlet, and a state link only where a cited source names it (here, an outlet Wikidata records as controlled by a government).

Public broadcasters with their own newsrooms count as state-owned too, and Wikidata can lag a sale.

Thread report

Thread report: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
Where the thread's accounts are based, coordination across the thread, and whether the harshest replies come mostly from flagged accounts.

The report describes the thread as the platform ranked it. It never scores a single reply or account.

Launch campaign

Launch campaign: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
On a launch post: how its engagement compares with the account's own posts, shared bio templates, join-date waves and Paid partnership labels.

The signs describe the engagement your page loaded. Real people also write stock bios, join in waves and reshare launches.

Evidence receipts

Evidence receipts: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
On your click: a linked repository's creation date and a site's first Internet Archive capture, each kept as a receipt.

The date is when this repository appeared on GitHub. A team may have built for years before that.

Offline check

Offline check: Daylight Commons' window on a synthetic page
The saved evidence chain, checked on the Analyse a file page: every receipt, link, the root and each proof.

Run it on us

The recording on this page points the evidence lookup at a made-up post that links Daylight Commons' own repository and site. The answers are live: GitHub's creation date for the repository, and the Internet Archive's first capture of the site. The site sits on github.io, a shared host, so the lookup skips RDAP there. Its registration date would belong to GitHub.

Before you rely on it

  • The window sees the replies the site chose to show, in the site's order.
  • Platform labels follow the connection. A VPN or a trip moves them, and users can widen them to a region.
  • The measurement page lists which signs have a measured precision, each with a 95% interval. The window marks every other sign "not measured yet".
  • The launch campaign lens has no measured precision yet. Until a media lawyer has reviewed its wording, every claim reads "this launch" and names no company.
  • A site redesign can break a reader until the next update. The extension says so when it reads nothing where replies should be.

Daylight Commons reads the site you are on. It contacts anything else only when you turn on Other coverage or evidence lookups and click. Free and open source under the AGPL-3.0.