During the plenary session of the German Bundestag on 9 July 2025, Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) stated: “Germany accounts for approximately 1 percent of the world’s population. We account for roughly 2 percent of the problem in terms of CO₂ emissions. Even if we were all climate-neutral in Germany tomorrow, not a single natural…
In October 2025, Sebastian Kruis, politician for the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), posted a controversial statement on his X profile: “The left says the problem is men. Wrong. The problem is mass migration. Flooding our streets with men from women-hostile cultures = abuse, violence, murder.” The post appeared two months after the murder of…
Misinformation and disinformation aren’t new phenomena in our society, but in this digital age, they’ve become nearly impossible to escape. Every day, on every social media platform, fake news stories circulate faster than fact-checkers can debunk them. One viral post might claim that Starbucks sponsored a controversial political convention, while another spreads gossip about a…
News outlets have been facing the rise of fake news in the past couple of years. Audiences and especially younger audiences are starting to avoid news completely. The Reuters Institute found in its annual survey that more and more people are avoiding news because it feels too negative or too overwhelming. People are choosing what…
On October 12, 2025, the talk show “Opinions” on RTR-Belarus made a claim about Ukrainian refugees that turns out to be false: “80% of Ukrainian refugees in Germany do not want to work. In the Netherlands and Poland, the numbers are only slightly better – more than 70% of these guests prefer to remain on…
Fake news has always existed, but with the rise of the Internet and social media, it spreads today more quickly and widely than ever. For this reason, fact-checking — the verification of the accuracy of statements, declarations, images or news — has become more and more central in the modern information landscape. However, fact-checking can…
In the digital age, truth travels slower than rumor. Fact-checking initiatives can expose misinformation, but they face an unexpected obstacle: those who already believe the falsehoods rarely change their minds. Why doesn’t evidence always win over conviction? The contemporary information environment has transformed the way societies understand truth. While digital platforms have made access to…
It is indeed true that fact-checking political claims often seems like an impossible task. Politicians sometimes tend to twist facts, throw around accusations or take figures out ofcontext. Populist politicians are the best in this club, and they are the ones who make the fact checker’s job so much more difficult. But we must never…
In an interview with “The Guardian” dated July 2, 2025, Teresa Ribera, Vice-President of the European Commission for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, comments against the backdrop of the increasing frequency of heatwaves in Europe. On the occasion of the heatwave in the summer of 2025, she states: “They are absolutely terrible temperatures that…
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed!” These are the words that were blasting through the radio on Halloween in 1938. “War of the Worlds” interrupted the news bulletin and music to declare that aliens were invading the earth. It was theatrical, melodramatic and spectacular. You could call it…