It was founded in March 2014 by Ukrainian professors and students with the stated purpose of refuting Russian propaganda and fake news.

[4] The site has been financed by crowdfunding, readers' contributions, the Renaissance Foundation, National Endowment for Democracy, National Democratic Institute, German Marshall Fund, the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic, the Foreign Ministry of the United Kingdom, the British Embassy in Ukraine, and the Sigrid Rausing Trust.

[20] Olga Yurkova, the founder and editor of StopFake, was included in the 2016 New Europe 100 list chosen by the Financial Times, Google, Res Publica and Visegrád Group.

[24] The New York Times wrote in 2017 that StopFake "is highly respected in journalistic circles here in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, for its specialty of debunking fake news", and it "reported some of the biggest nonstories of the war" in Ukraine.

[4] Freedom House described it as a "gold standard" in exposing fake news, said that its work has become "a model in other Central and Eastern European countries".

[7] In 2020, The New York Times reported that despite its commitment to neutral fact-checking, as per Facebook's policy, StopFake was accused of bias in its work.

[25][31] The report also stated that the director and founder of StopFake, Yevhen Fedchenko, had tweeted in defence of S14 on one occasion, spoken against freedom of the press and supported the website Myrotvorets.

[30][25][31] Following this Sergatskova was subjected to online harassment from commentators and hard right figures, including death threats and posting of her personal information, and she left Kyiv, reporting fears for her life.

[30][35][36] Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba supported StopFake, saying that his ministry observed co-ordinated, systematic attempts by Russia to undermine the reputation of the fact-checking project.