The wave of disinformation that has come with 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 we have launched UkraineFacts.org together with nearly one hundred fact-checking organizations from around the world to better understand how disinformation about this conflict spreads. We have now been invited to take part in the European Digital Media Observatory’s EDMO task force on the war in Ukraine. Here we explain what we are going to do and why we accepted.
During the pandemic, we had already realized how important international collaboration could be in the middle of a disinformation crisis: it allows you to identify hoaxes that are already circulating in other countries and rely on the work of other fact-checkers to be more efficient, but also to observe how certain types of false narratives spread more successfully in some places than in others. When Russian tanks entered Ukraine, we already had the experience of the coronavirus and knew that collaboration had to begin from the very first minute.
This working group is one way of doing that. Its mission will be to gather information in the form of fact-checks, investigations, databases, and analyses of the disinformation associated with the invasion of Ukraine, to support its dissemination, and to encourage cooperative initiatives. All of this, in EDMO’s words, will also serve “to inform policymakers and public officials, including the European Commission, and help them understand the phenomenon of disinformation and contribute to ensuring that decisions about the war in Ukraine are made in accordance with the evidence.” This aligns with the work we do every day at Maldita.es through our Public Policy unit: providing lawmakers with data and evidence-based facts so they can make decisions with the best available information.
The European task force on disinformation in the Ukraine crisis has already begun its work and has issued a warning about groups trying to manipulate the public by pretending to be fact-checking organizations. We are collaborating in this initiative and will keep you updated on its activities.