“Our rivers are the dirtiest in Europe.” That is what Mieke Schauvliege (Groen) claimed in a TikTok video that circulated this January. During our fact check, experts and other sources made it clear to us that the statement was untrue. Yet that conclusion didn’t feel entirely fair. The inaccuracy of the claim lays mainly in its lack of nuance, and labelling the entire statement as false would once again leave too little room for that nuance.
Packaged claim
Because the fact that Flanders does not have the very dirtiest rivers in Europe does not mean that Flemish rivers are anywhere near clean.
In Schauvliege’s case, the claim is not a completely fabricated story or a deliberate deception. The facts show that Flemish waterways do indeed struggle with pollution, and that Flanders lags behind on several points when it comes to European water standards. The core of her message is therefore not baseless and is certainly relevant to the wider public. But that message was simplified into an absolute, incorrect claim — a claim that was then packaged into a TikTok and spread online.
Striving for completeness
It is no secret that more and more people get their information from social media. Nor is it a secret that bold statements perform well on those platforms. They are short, sharp, and perfectly aligned with the logic of algorithms. It is therefore hardly surprising that politicians find it tempting to amplify their message in order to increase their reach. Several studies, including a 2025 PNAS Nexus study, confirm that longer videos with little action, conflict, or tension generally attract fewer viewers. The more forceful the statement, the more likely it is to stick. But where forcefulness enters, nuance is often the first thing to disappear.
This raises a broader question: Is it better for the public to receive a simplified, sometimes distorted message than no message at all? Or is it better to continue striving for completeness, even if that results in less reach?
Deceleration
In this increasingly prominent tension between nuance and reach, journalism can play an important role. Where algorithms tend to amplify extremes, journalists can counterbalance them by contextualising, dissecting, and fact-checking those extremes.
In an online world where exaggeration and speed often outperform accuracy, it is up to journalists to introduce a form of deceleration. They can reveal what lies behind viral claims, which figures are relevant, which definitions are being used, and which context is missing. That may not sound spectacular, but it is essential for understanding the facts. And the public has a right to that: to receive the facts, and to be able to understand them.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Lilly Arnouts, Joke Daems and Frederieke Verseput, AP University of Applied Sciences Antwerp, Belgium.
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