Projects

Prebunking at Scale aims to enhance public resilience against dis- and misinformation by proactively addressing emerging false claims and narratives before they gain widespread traction by combining the strengths of two of the most widely used interventions against the spread of disinformation: prebunking and debunking. The former is often not specific enough, and the latter is only applicable retroactively. Our project will reconcile these approaches and leverage their strengths to most effectively counter disinformation.

The EFCSN and 46 of its member organisations are working together to create a network-approved definition and methodology for prebunking, rooted in the experience of our journalists and fact-checkers and in academic research. This will empower all EFCSN members to produce highly effective prebunking materials adhering to industry-wide best practices. We will also build an advanced, AI-powered, social and traditional media monitoring and analysis tool, which will predict in which language and about which topic misinformation might appear. Based on these predictive alerts, participating organisations will be able to publish prebunking materials just in time before users are exposed to misinformation.

The Prebunking at Scale project is funded by Google.org.

FactCRICIS: European Fact-Checking Response in Climate Crises sets out to support fact-checkers to identify and debunk disinformation campaigns related to climate change and other crises, fostering more rapid, impactful and coordinated responses within and across European borders.

For the project, the EFCSN and 21 of its member organisations will work alongside TU Dortmund, Newtral, Maldita.es, Science Feedback, and Ontotext.

The project’s goal is to establish a comprehensive package of practical resources—combining cutting edge AI tools with climate expertise—designed to bolster the preparedness of European fact-checkers to respond to climate mis/disinformation and foster cross-border collaboration.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.

In collaboration with Google News Initiative, the EFCSN developed a fact-checking database focused on the 2024 European Elections, called Elections24Check.

This first-of-its-kind database collected and categorised political fact-checks, disinformation debunks, prebunking articles, and narrative reports on transcontinental trends reported by over 40 fact-checking organisations across Europe. The project emphasised checks on claims made related to the 2024 European Elections.

Users could search and filter for articles in different languages, relating to specific countries and political parties, and pertaining to certain topics, such as climate change and security and defence. The goal was to increase cross-country collaboration and act as a resource for European citizens.
Participating members of the EFCSN also published Narrative Reports analyzing the data for trends in mis and dis information during the elections.

The platform is no longer available, but researchers and journalists can still request access to an in-depth data set for their own analysis.

With the support of the European Climate Foundation, the Climate Facts Europe project aimed to facilitate collaboration between fact-checking organisations for work related to climate misinformation and disinformation during the European Elections.

The project also resulted in the publication of several in-depth reports about climate misinformation, analysing data collected by participating members to provide a wider picture of trends observed pre- and post- elections.

With the support of Meta, the EFCSN conducted training sessions to help train fact-checkers across Europe on best practices, new techniques and essential tools for identifying AI generated and digitally altered content. The project also included a media literacy campaign to raise public awareness of how to spot this type of content.

With the support of Porticus, the EFCSN created a mentorship program for young fact-checking organisations, pairing mentees with verified members of the EFCSN acting as mentors.

The program included 7 training sessions to help the organisations expand their fact-checking capacities and establish best practices, as well as prepare them for the EFCSN’s application process. Participating mentees also received a grant and fee waivers to encourage further engagement with the EFCSN.

For both mentors and mentees, it provides networking opportunities and strengthens the cross-border connections between fact-checking organisations across Europe.