The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) condemns the coordinated campaign targeting its Albanian member Faktoje, in which financial information the organisation publishes voluntarily has been stripped of context and turned against it.
What happened
EFCSN member Faktoje, an independent fact-checking organisation based in Albania, and its director, Klodiana Kapo, are facing a series of coordinated attacks from media outlets that have been circulating and reproducing articles which question Faktoje’s funding, financial management and independence, using its publicly available financial statements to cast doubt on the organisation’s credibility.
Faktoje considers these attacks to be directly connected to its fact-checking activities under its partnership with Meta, in the context of its recent fact-checking work covering the ongoing protests and debunking misleading narratives targeting protesters.
Why fact-checkers are transparent
Transparency is a core value of the independent fact-checking community. Members of the EFCSN commit, under the European Code of Standards, to disclose who funds them, who owns them, who runs them, and how they work. They are independently assessed against these commitments before they can join the network and every second year after that.
We ask this of our members because the public has a right to know who they are dealing with. Fact-checkers ask politicians, institutions and platforms to account for their claims. They are willing to be held to the same standard. Openness about funding allows readers to judge for themselves whether a fact-checker is independent, and it is that openness, combined with a published methodology and a commitment to correct errors, that makes fact-checking trustworthy.
A pattern
The campaign against Faktoje is not an isolated case. Across Europe, the EFCSN is seeing regular attempts by malign actors to exploit the very disclosures fact-checkers make in good faith. In particular funding pages or grant lists are stripped of context to discredit fact-checkers.
There is hypocrisy at play. Those who mount these campaigns rarely disclose anything about who they are, who pays them or whose interests they serve. They exploit transparency while offering none in return.
If it continues, this pattern sends a dangerous message: that being transparent makes you a target. That would punish exactly the behaviour that strengthens public trust, and reward the opacity that undermines it.
This needs to stop
The EFCSN will not respond by retreating from transparency. Our members will continue to publish their funding, ownership and methods, because the public deserves nothing less. But transparency cannot be a one-way obligation borne only by those acting in good faith. We therefore call on:
- Those behind the campaign to stop misrepresenting Faktoje’s funding and to cease targeting its staff.
- Albanian authorities and European institutions to speak up publicly for independent fact-checkers and journalists, and to ensure their safety.
- Media outlets reporting on fact-checkers’ funding to do so accurately and in context.
- Funders of independent fact-checking to stand publicly by the organisations they support when they come under attack.
The EFCSN stands in full solidarity with Faktoje and its team. Their transparency is a strength, not a vulnerability, and it should be recognised as such.
