Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories: 

🗳️ 🇪🇸 Disinformation about the electoral process in the Catalan elections. On May 12, Catalonia held regional elections. Even before the voting was completed, false allegations of electoral fraud were circulated, alleging unfair practices in the voting process, as happened in all national elections examined in the Report on disinformation narratives during the 2023 elections in Europe, the first output of the EDMO Task Force on EU Elections.

In the case of the Catalan elections, false stories claim that certain candidates had offered money for votes, or that a railway breakdown in the region was due to sabotage to prevent trains from leaving and people from voting. Such a theory has been denied by local authorities, but it is similar to a false story circulated in the context of the Spanish national elections in the summer of 2023.


🚩 EDMO has flagged to X an account known for spreading disinformation. Following articles and reports of several fact-checking organizations within its fact-checking network, EDMO has formally flagged an X account named RadioGenoa to the platform, for spreading disinformation, mainly about migrants and other minorities. The RadioGenoa account has recently been the subject of a dedicated investigation by VRTNWS, and EDMO provided dozens of additional links to debunked content. Representatives of X welcomed the initiative and, after a week, provided some information about actions taken. EDMO thinks that those actions fell short of its expectations, among other reasons because they focused on some specific tweets provided as examples, and not on the account itself. The interlocution, however, is ongoing and EDMO will continue to monitor the evolution of the situation in the next stages.


🏃🏼‍♂️‍➡️ 🇪🇺 BENEDMO launches a Fact Checking marathon for the EU elections. The initiative of the EDMO hub in Belgium and the Netherlands plans to bring together eight journalistic organizations for a fact-checking marathon in the run-up to the European elections. For ten days, a group of twenty fact-checkers will check politicians’ claims full-time, using different formats such as articles, videos and podcasts to ensure wide accessibility and impact. Dutch, Flemish and French-speaking media are working together for the marathon.

The diverse coalition - which includes public, private and academic sectors - will operate from May 27 to June 9. Read more here: VRT NWS bundelt krachten met andere redacties voor factcheckmarathon in aanloop naar verkiezingen (in Dutch).

If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu

This tool gathers material from the inputs of the EDMO fact-checking network, as well as a recently launched public database from the EFCSN network (Elections 24 Check), and the various national EDMO hubs, including community initiatives and insights from individual fact-checking organizations.