Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories:
🇸🇰 Early warning - Robert Fico shooting. Following the shooting of Slovak prime minister Robert Fico, on May 15, it is very likely that disinformation will try to exploit the situation to convey different messages. Disinformation could have both a national and European dimension, connecting the attempted assassination to domestic elements or to international events. Considering the strong political polarization existing in Slovakia, disinformation will likely try to deepen and enlarge the divisions in the Slovakian society ahead of the EU elections and after. False news connecting the shooter with the opposition party, Progressive Slovakia, are already circulating online.
🗳️ 🇪🇺 The false story that the ballots for the EU elections are invalid. In Germany, a message spread on Telegram in early May claimed that ballots with holes or corners cut are invalid “since the beginning”, suggesting that the elections are useless or that the results will be tampered. In fact, these modifications, required by electoral regulations, help blind and visually impaired citizens to vote independently using special templates. The false claim used old and unrelated photos.
It is the first case of such disinformation directly regarding the EU elections detected by our network, but false stories about the electoral process have been the most common disinformation affecting national elections held in Europe in 2023, suggesting, for example, voter fraud, vote rigging, and vote tampering. This narrative included all sorts of false stories about voting procedures, and it is possible that it reemerges consistently as the EU elections get closer. Read here the report of the EDMO Task Force dedicated to the analysis of disinformation narratives identified during the 2023 EU elections in Council of Europe member states: Disinformation narratives during the 2023 elections in Europe.
⛓️ Other false stories that portray the EU as corrupted. The false story about the ballots came after other recent claims seeking to portray European institutions and procedures as unreasonable and dishonest. In Portugal, for example, a doctored image was circulated purporting to show Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission president, being arrested in the European Parliament. In Hungary, the photo of an information panel on a public toilet – explaining it was built thanks to EU funds – was circulated claiming that the toilet itself cost 268 million Hungarian forints to build (in fact, the cost of the whole project), suggesting that money was being stolen or that EU procedures are absurd.
📊 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 Systematic analysis of disinformation in Spain and Portugal. IBERIFIER, the Edmo regional Hub covering the Iberian peninsula, issued a report exploring the spread and evolution of disinformation in Spain and Portugal, covering consumption forms, platforms, and narratives over four years. Findings show low levels of trust in the news in Spain, compared to Portugal’s higher trust levels. It is an analytical framework considering the wider societal impact of said phenomena at a social, cultural, political, geopolitical, and economic level, considering similarities and differences between the two countries. Read more here: Disinformation consumption patterns in Spain and Portugal.
If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu
What is a “disinformation narrative”? Please find here a short methodological note about the definition used by the EDMO fact-checking network.
The Disinfo Bulletin 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.
