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 13 June 2022 and Monday 20 June 2022.

178,624 Misinforming Tweets
New:+156 Trend:-526
75,504 Fact-checking Tweets
New:+310 Trend:-59
3,684 Fact-checks
136 Fact-checking Organisations

Key Content and Provenance

During the period between Monday 13 June 2022 and Monday 20 June 2022, 156 new URLs have been identified as potential misinforming content. Out of the 224 domains identified by Fact-checking organisations (Figure 1), most of the new shared URLs were from correctiv.org with an increase of +93 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 15min.lt 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 rumble.com with a change of +58 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 -224 compared to the previous period.

The all time most important domain is twitter.com with a total of 123,694 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://rumble.com/v10miez-world-premiere-watch-the-water.html LeadStories rumble.com 72 14 6541
http://neuesausrussland.online/wie-mobile-krematorien-dabei-helfen-den-ukrainischen-massenverkauf-von-organen-an-die-eu-zu-verbergen CORRECTIV.ORG neuesausrussland.online 17 3 91
https://t.me/izvestia/93121 euvsdisinfo.eu t.me 12 0 12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc LeadStories youtube.com 9 14 8876
https://zicer.org/2022/06/09/tome-se-nije-nadao-nenad-canak-uhapsen-u-ukrajini-kao-ruski-agent/ Raskrinkavanje.me zicer.org 8 144 152
https://realrawnews.com/2022/02/putin-vows-to-crush-child-traffickers-in-ukraine/ Fundacja “Przeciwdziałamy Dezinformacji” realrawnews.com 4 29 979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1b-RKDHZOo LeadStories youtube.com 4 11 2407
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254217.shtml StopFake.org globaltimes.cn 4 4 1476
https://newspunch.com/putin-orders-military-to-destroy-bio-labs-in-ukraine-as-us-scrubs-evidence-of-their-existence AFP fact checking newspunch.com 4 4 1026
https://thefauxy.com/pakistan-imposes-economic-sanctions-on-russia-refuses-to-repay-loans Taiwan FactCheck Center thefauxy.com 3 9 3980

Table 1: Top misinforming content.

Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-red-cross-collected-data-on-children-s-healthy-organs-in-mariupol/ stopfake.org 50 74 124
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/06/14/nein-kfc-und-booking-com-haben-ukrainerinnen-nicht-mit-werbung-mit-sexuellem-unterton-am-muenchner-hauptbahnhof-begruesst/ correctiv.org 44 0 44
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/06/15/beschuss-durch-russische-oder-ukrainische-truppen-tagesschau-korrigiert-bericht-ueber-angriff-auf-einen-markt-in-donezk/ correctiv.org 36 0 36
https://www.ellinikahoaxes.gr/2022/06/09/greece-receives-older-military-equipment-than-the-one-it-will-send-to-ukraine-misinformation/ ellinikahoaxes.gr 12 7 19
https://fullfact.org/online/ukraine-kyiv-italian-news-deep-impact/ fullfact.org 10 0 57
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.326C94R afp.com 8 26 191
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/04/fact-check-recent-fires-at-us-food-processing-plants-do-not-show-plot-to-cause-food-shortage.html leadstories.com 7 16 98
https://facta.news/fuori-contesto/2022/06/17/il-pentagono-non-ha-ammesso-silenziosamente-di-aver-finanziato-46-laboratori-in-ucraina/ facta.news 7 0 7
https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-ukrainian-military-seize-un-kramatorsk-un-office/ stopfake.org 6 2 8
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/04/12/nein-die-usa-haben-die-existenz-von-biowaffen-laboren-in-der-ukraine-nicht-zugegeben/ correctiv.org 5 3 48

Table 2: Top fact-checked content.

Fact-Checkers and Spreaders Location

The data used for creating the Twitter dataset is obtained from 136 fact-checking organisations.

The largest amount of fact-checked content comes from euvsdisinfo.eu (285 fact-checks) and the least from Verify Sy (1 fact-checks). Most fact-checked content are from LeadStories (224) followed by AFP fact checking (190) 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. 305 599 143874
Germany Sovereign state in central europe. 88 49 10326
Russia Sovereign state in eastern europe and northern asia. 83 96 22921
worldwide Published or operating in multiple or all jurisdictions on earth; special value for “place of publication” (p291) and “operating area” (p2541). 83 37 12867
Americas Landmass comprising the continents of north america and south america. 72 14 6553
Earth Third planet from the sun in the solar system. 61 107 20798
United States of America Sovereign state in north america. 60 69 35868
Soviet Union Federal socialist state in eastern europe and northern asia (1922–1991). 44 33 8366
Donetsk Capital city of donetsk oblast in estern ukraine. 40 1 2005
Europe Continent on earth, mainly on the northeastern quadrant, i.e. north-western eurasia. 19 46 34260

Table 3: Top locations mentioned in misinforming posts.

Person Description Current Week Previous Week Total
Anthony Fauci American immunologist and head of the u.s. National institute of allergy and infectious diseases. 72 14 6541
Vladimir Putin 2nd and 4th president of russia. 29 54 53426
Volodymyr Zelenskyi 6th president of ukraine. 29 36 51637
George Soros Hungarian-american business magnate, investor and philanthropist. 6 1 1933
Joe Biden President-elect of the united states, former vice president (2009–2017). 5 36 4145
Richard Nixon 37th president of the united states of america (1913-1994). 5 5 1677
Filippa Lentzos Researcher. 5 5 1423
Thomas Mettenleiter German virologist. 5 3 48
Fatih Birol Turkish economist. 4 23 28
Donald Trump 45th and current president of the united states. 4 2 1836

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.