The Fact-checking Observatory is an automatic service that collects misinforming content on Twitter using URLs that have been identified as potential misinformation by fact-checking websites. Using this data, the Fact-checking Observatory automatically generates weekly reports that updates the state of misinformation spread of fact-checked misinformation on Twitter.

This analysis is limited to URLs identified by Fact-checking organisations. The collected data only consist of non-blocked Twitter content and may be incomplete.

This report updates the status of misinformation spread between Monday 14 March 2022 and Monday 21 March 2022.

92,592 Misinforming Tweets
New:+9,148 Trend:-10,410
58,287 Fact-checking Tweets
New:+6,977 Trend:-3,794
3,576 Fact-checks
135 Fact-checking Organisations

Key Content and Provenance

During the period between Monday 14 March 2022 and Monday 21 March 2022, 9,148 new URLs have been identified as potential misinforming content. Out of the 183 domains identified by Fact-checking organisations (Figure 1), most of the new shared URLs were from twitter.com with an increase of +6,231 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain The domain that saw the least increase in spread compared to the previous period total spread was 24-post.com with a change of +0 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain

In relation to the previous week, the domain that saw the biggest relative spread change was johnhelmer.net with a change of +684 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain whereas the domain that saw the least relative change was twitter.com with a change of -6,672 compared to the previous period.

The all time most important domain is twitter.com with a total of 64,167 URL shares and the least popular domain is 24-post.com with 1 shares (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Domain importance.

Figure 2: Amount of domains shares per week.

The top misinforming content and fact-checking articles shared since the last report are listed in Table 1 and Table 2.

Misinforming URL Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://twitter.com/KYTKYTKYTKYTKYT/status/1504101781848174592 LeadStories twitter.com 1966 0 1966
https://twitter.com/sternenko/status/1504090918994993160 MALDITA.ES twitter.com 1409 0 1409
https://twitter.com/slmhktn/status/1503278396880601092 Teyit.org twitter.com 1145 0 1145
https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1505654899777937413 MALDITA.ES twitter.com 801 0 801
https://www.alertadigital.com/2022/03/12/el-gobierno-de-rusia-anuncia-una-orden-de-detencion-contra-el-multimillonario-george-soros-principal-promotor-del-conflicto-en-ucrania/ MALDITA.ES alertadigital.com 685 749 1434
http://johnhelmer.net/the-zelensky-summit-meeting-in-kiev-on-march-15-with-polish-czech-and-slovenian-prime-ministers-was-a-fake-devised-in-warsaw-the-meeting-was-at-przemysl-poland-zelensky-also MALDITA.ES johnhelmer.net 684 0 684
https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/us-official-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-risks-release-of-dangerous-pathogens/ Istinomer thebulletin.org 501 2054 4328
https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1504203328330387456 Facta.news twitter.com 313 0 313
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254217.shtml StopFake.org globaltimes.cn 277 882 1159
https://twitter.com/MarinaOvsyy/ Dagens Nyheter twitter.com 264 0 264

Table 1: Top misinforming content.

Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/mar/14/tweets/no-zelenskys-hospital-visit-video-doesnt-feature-c/ politifact.com 1077 0 1077
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32674RT afp.com 752 0 752
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/03/fact-check-video-of-putin-ending-the-war-is-not-real.html leadstories.com 576 0 576
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/25/tweets/there-are-no-us-run-biolabs-ukraine-contrary-socia/ politifact.com 303 976 1684
https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32683FZ afp.com 258 0 258
https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32693CW afp.com 154 0 154
https://factuel.afp.com/doc.afp.com.324Q3AK afp.com 108 0 108
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/03/fact-check-ukraine-now-video-does-not-show-ukraine.html leadstories.com 103 0 108
https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.326B63M afp.com 81 0 81
https://fullfact.org/online/ukraine-footage-actor-body-bag/ fullfact.org 80 0 80

Table 2: Top fact-checked content.

Fact-Checkers and Spreaders Location

The data used for creating the Twitter dataset is obtained from 135 fact-checking organisations.

The largest amount of fact-checked content comes from euvsdisinfo.eu (262 fact-checks) and the least from Verificat (1 fact-checks). Most fact-checked content are from LeadStories (206) followed by AFP fact checking (188) and Factcheck.ge (138) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Amount of fact-checks by fact-checkers.

Figure 4: Identified location of users spreading fact-checks and misinformation.

Locations and Mentions

Using automatic entity extraction methods, we identify key locations and persons mention in the fact-checking articles in order to identify what location and person are the most discussed in misinforming content.

The top mentioned locations and persons are listed in Table 3 and Table 4.

Location Description Current Week Previous Week Total
Ukraine Sovereign state in eastern europe. 53 80 3894
Europe Continent on earth, mainly on the northeastern quadrant, i.e. north-western eurasia. 21 6 134
Spain Sovereign state in southwestern europe with territories in the mediterranean sea, the atlantic ocean and northern africa. 21 6 134
Russia Sovereign state in eastern europe and northern asia. 20 24 3488
Moscow Capital and most populous city of russia. 20 23 3080
Melilla Autonomous city of spain in north africa. 20 0 20
Poland Sovereign state in central europe. 20 0 20
Stockholm Capital of sweden. 20 0 20
Saudi Arabia Sovereign state in western asia. 2 0 2
United Arab Emirates Sovereign state in southwest asia. 2 0 2

Table 3: Top locations mentioned in misinforming posts.

Person Description Current Week Previous Week Total
Donald Trump 45th and current president of the united states. 30 27 208
Hunter Biden American lawyer, investment advisor, and second son of former vice president joe biden. 30 27 208
Joe Biden President-elect of the united states, former vice president (2009–2017). 30 27 208
Volodymyr Zelenskyi 6th president of ukraine. 23 22 560
Olena Zelenska Ukrainian architect and screenwriter. 2 15 18
Denys Shmyhal Ukrainian politician. 2 15 17
Barack Obama 44th president of the united states. 1 6 114
Donald Trump Jr.  American businessman and son of u.s. President donald trump. 1 6 114
Wang Wenbin Ming dynasty person cbdb = 260629. 0 23 3060
Ukraine Sovereign state in eastern europe. 0 1 408

Table 4: Top people mentioned in misinforming posts.

Demographic Impact

Using automatic methods, Twitter account demographics are extracted for user age, gender and account type (i.e., identify if an account belong to an individual or organisation).

Figure 6 displays how misinformation and fact-checks are spread by different demographics.

Figure 5: Misinformation and Fact-check spread for different demographics. Top: Gender, Center: Age group, Bottom: Account type.

Data Collection and Methodology

The full methodology and information about the limitation and dataset used for this analysis can be accessed in the methodology page.