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 04 July 2022 and Monday 11 July 2022.

210,958 Misinforming Tweets
New:+183 Trend:-707
76,618 Fact-checking Tweets
New:+444 Trend:+117
3,813 Fact-checks
138 Fact-checking Organisations

Key Content and Provenance

During the period between Monday 04 July 2022 and Monday 11 July 2022, 183 new URLs have been identified as potential misinforming content. Out of the 227 domains identified by Fact-checking organisations (Figure 1), most of the new shared URLs were from knack.be with an increase of +144 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 knack.be with a change of +123 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain whereas the domain that saw the least relative change was dailystar.co.uk with a change of -438 compared to the previous period.

The all time most important domain is twitter.com with a total of 154,688 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://thefauxy.com/pakistan-imposes-economic-sanctions-on-russia-refuses-to-repay-loans Taiwan FactCheck Center thefauxy.com 39 4 4026
https://ria.ru/20220707/vks-1800882247.html StopFake.org ria.ru 34 0 34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1b-RKDHZOo LeadStories youtube.com 19 4 2435
https://rumble.com/v10miez-world-premiere-watch-the-water.html LeadStories rumble.com 17 9 6586
https://twitter.com/Ukraine66251776/status/1518045080656953349 Knack.be twitter.com 16 8 609
https://twitter.com/TomacMarti/status/1537672340636676097 LeadStories twitter.com 15 50 16313
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc LeadStories youtube.com 8 5 8898
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1526185858411405312 LeadStories twitter.com 7 3 7581
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/obese-russian-general-67-called-27326346 https://www.knack.be/factcheck/ dailystar.co.uk 3 441 1069
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254217.shtml StopFake.org globaltimes.cn 3 7 1489

Table 1: Top misinforming content.

Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://www.knack.be/factcheck/factcheck-nee-deze-foto-toont-geen-russische-generaal-majoor/ knack.be 129 0 129
https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-lithuania-dismantles-railway-to-kaliningrad/ stopfake.org 61 0 61
https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32DU9DD afp.com 53 0 53
https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32E39QG afp.com 28 0 28
https://www.boomlive.in/news/vladimir-putin-parents-leningrad-dead-hillary-clinton-russia-ukraine-16937 boomlive.in 22 0 59
https://faktencheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32AA93D afp.com 13 15 38
https://www.knack.be/factcheck/factcheck-nee-deze-fotocollage-bewijst-niet-dat-de-russische-president-vladimir-poetin-een-figurant-inhuurde-tijdens-een-ziekenhuisbezoek/ knack.be 10 4 14
https://factchecknederland.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32DR9PV afp.com 10 0 10
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/07/01/gefangener-mit-hakenkreuz-tattoos-foto-stammt-nicht-aus-der-ukraine-sondern-von-2005-aus-belarus/ correctiv.org 9 39 48
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-parrots-russian-talking-point-on-ukraine/ factcheck.org 6 3 150

Table 2: Top fact-checked content.

Fact-Checkers and Spreaders Location

The data used for creating the Twitter dataset is obtained from 138 fact-checking organisations.

The largest amount of fact-checked content comes from euvsdisinfo.eu (295 fact-checks) and the least from Verify Sy (1 fact-checks). Most fact-checked content are from LeadStories (255) followed by AFP fact checking (199) 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. 318 234 144992
Belarus Sovereign state in eastern europe. 133 60 7036
Europe Continent on earth, mainly on the northeastern quadrant, i.e. north-western eurasia. 78 34 34458
Poland Sovereign state in central europe. 70 49 5279
Soviet Union Federal socialist state in eastern europe and northern asia (1922–1991). 70 16 8428
Lithuania Sovereign state in northeastern europe. 62 2 684
Baltic Sea Sea in northern europe bounded by the scandinavian peninsula, the mainland of europe, and the danish islands. 61 0 65
Kaliningrad City in kaliningrad oblast, russia. 61 0 61
United States of America Sovereign state in north america. 57 36 33797
Russia Sovereign state in eastern europe and northern asia. 44 57 23372

Table 3: Top locations mentioned in misinforming posts.

Person Description Current Week Previous Week Total
Vladimir Putin 2nd and 4th president of russia. 93 78 53943
Volodymyr Zelenskyy Sixth and current president of ukraine. 53 39 51820
Anthony Fauci American immunologist and head of the u.s. National institute of allergy and infectious diseases. 17 9 6586
Olaf Scholz German politician, federal minister of finance and vice chancellor. 13 16 59
Bill Clinton 42nd president of the united states. 9 7 933
Viktor Yanukovych Ukrainian politician who was the president of ukraine. 9 3 2128
President of the United States Head of state and head of government of the united states of america. 7 8 5772
Sergey Lavrov Russian politician and foreign minister. 6 3 463
Barack Obama 44th president of the united states. 6 3 354
Marjorie Taylor Greene American politician and businesswoman from the state of georgia. 6 3 169

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.