Maldita.es joins the working group on Ukraine of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) on disinformation

The surge of disinformation that has accompanied the Russian invasion of Ukraine is enormous. At Maldita.es, we have already debunked more than 120 hoaxes on the subject in just over a month and launched UkraineFacts.org along with nearly a hundred fact-checking organizations worldwide to better understand how disinformation about this conflict moves. Now, we have been invited to be part of the working group for the war in Ukraine of the European Union’s Disinformation Observatory EDMO. We explain what we are going to do and why we have accepted.

Already during the pandemic, we realized how important international collaboration could be in the midst of a disinformation crisis: it allows you to identify hoaxes that are already circulating in other countries and lean on the work of other verifiers to be more efficient, but also to observe how certain types of false narratives progress better in some places than in others. When Russian tanks entered Ukraine, we already had the experience from the coronavirus and knew that collaboration from minute one was essential.

This working group is a way to do it. Its mission will be to compile information in the form of debunking, research, databases, and analysis of the disinformation associated with the invasion of Ukraine, promote its dissemination and also the initiatives for cooperation. All of this, in the words of the EDMO, will also serve

“to inform legislators and public officials, including the European Commission, and help them understand the phenomenon of disinformation and contribute to ensuring decisions about the war in Ukraine are made based on evidence.”

This is part of the work we do every day at Maldita.es from the Public Policy unit: providing legislators with data, facts based on evidence so that they make decisions with the best information available.

The European working group on disinformation in the Ukraine crisis has already started its work and has issued a warning about groups trying to manipulate by posing as fact-checking organizations. We are collaborating in this initiative and will keep you updated on its activities.