• Priority Area Boosting Fact-checking Activities in Europe
• Funding Round / Action Types 3rd Funding Round – Urgent Actions
• Year 2023, 2024
• Country Romania
• Project Status Ongoing

Fake news regarding the war at our borders may be just as dangerous as the real weapons, because misinformation leads to hate and conflict. The FAKE NEWS WAR’s purpose is to bring reliable news and information to target audiences, contribute to trustworthy media environment in Europe through fact-checking pieces of news and information, raising awareness and educate people, therefore they will be able to evaluate and identify fake news.

Our project aims to work on three different levels:

1. Identify and expose the false news and theories that you can now find everywhere, especially on social media.
2. Educate the public to spot the fake, to improve the detection of disinformation around topics of public interest.
3. Raise awareness, in order to convince regular people not to share any piece of “interesting” information they find online, before they are completely sure it is true.

The plan is to continuously monitor the social media and find the information that is likely to confuse, agitate, spread fake claims. We will select the fake news by considering at least three parameters: how viral is the claim, the source and the nature of the claim.

We will carefully research the information, with all our available tools. For the purpose of all the journalistic investigations and fact-checking activities, we have a team of fact-checkers, academic consultants and experts that we selected to consult whenever necessary.

The primary audience for our fact-checking activities is online and we will address a diverse audience target, with different backgrounds and education. In order to reach a wider audience, we included audio materials that we’ll broadcast directly to the public on the streets and we are ready to sign partner agreements with local media (both online and printed) who can help with the dissemination.

We expect our project to have a major benefit for the audience it will reach, who it can inform, correct and educate in order to reduce the harm caused by misinformation and disinformation.