Unsubstantiated Claim

What it is

An unsubstantiated claim is a public statement that asserts something checkable and has no evidence recorded against it, whether or not the statement happens to be true. It is a governance state, not a factual verdict — a claim can be entirely accurate and still unsubstantiated. What is missing is the file that would let anyone demonstrate it.

The idea that the missing evidence is itself the defect comes from advertising law. The FTC's 1984 policy statement requires that "advertisers and ad agencies have a reasonable basis for advertising claims before they are disseminated", and treats "failure to possess and rely upon a reasonable basis for objective claims" as a violation on its own — proving the claim true afterwards does not cure it. The legal doctrine is narrower than the usage here: it reaches "express and implied claims, however conveyed, that make objective assertions about the item or service advertised", not every public statement. We apply the same test more widely, and we ask that the evidence be recorded against the claim, not merely held.

Why it matters

A claim you cannot check is a claim you cannot maintain. Nobody can answer a customer's question about its basis, and nobody will notice when the underlying fact moves, because there is no recorded link between the sentence and the thing it depends on. Treating the missing evidence as the defect — rather than waiting for the claim to become false — is what makes the problem findable while it is still cheap.