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 21 November 2022 and Monday 28 November 2022.

249,372 Misinforming Tweets
New:+227 Trend:-1,094
88,496 Fact-checking Tweets
New:+311 Trend:+89
5,036 Fact-checks
143 Fact-checking Organisations

Key Content and Provenance

During the period between Monday 21 November 2022 and Monday 28 November 2022, 227 new URLs have been identified as potential misinforming content. Out of the 287 domains identified by Fact-checking organisations (Figure 1), most of the new shared URLs were from knack.be with an increase of +90 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 +83 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain whereas the domain that saw the least relative change was thegatewaypundit.com with a change of -811 compared to the previous period.

The all time most important domain is twitter.com with a total of 180,116 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://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/439320.ukrainischer-nationalismus-hass-aufs-russische.html Correctiv jungewelt.de 51 0 51
https://rumble.com/v10miez-world-premiere-watch-the-water.html LeadStories rumble.com 40 10 6771
https://twitter.com/Ukraine66251776/status/1562436530794541060 15min.lt twitter.com 31 0 691
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/breaking-exclusive-tens-billions-transferred-ukraine-using-ftx-crypto-currency-laundered-back-democrats-us AFP fact checking thegatewaypundit.com 28 839 3936
https://twitter.com/NTY57NTY/status/1595018791209127936 Knack twitter.com 26 0 26
https://realrawnews.com/2022/02/shock-claim-russian-spetznas-liberate-child-trafficking-victims-in-ukraine LeadStories realrawnews.com 15 0 777
https://twitter.com/Louzi1969/status/1594567250354221056 Correctiv twitter.com 10 0 10
https://www.iefimerida.gr/kosmos/eyropaiko-koinoboylio-bariopoyla-sfragida-wagner Ellinika Hoaxes iefimerida.gr 5 0 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc LeadStories youtube.com 4 3 9019
https://twitter.com/Ukraine66251776/status/1518045080656953349 Knack.be twitter.com 3 6 1030

Table 1: Top misinforming content.

Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://www.knack.be/factcheck/factcheck-nepnieuws-over-oekraiense-voetbalfans-in-qatar-ontmaskerd/ knack.be 71 0 71
https://www.stopfake.org/en/international-media-regurgitating-old-fakes-about-the-azov-battalion-and-neo-nazism-in-ukraine/ stopfake.org 16 4 274
https://www.knack.be/factcheck/factcheck-ja-zelensky-verbood-elf-politieke-partijen/ knack.be 13 7 977
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/11/21/ukraine-nein-lyudmila-denisova-bot-gegenueber-russischen-komikern-nicht-an-russische-kriegsverbrechen-zu-erfinden/ correctiv.org 13 0 13
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/11/21/nein-die-deutschen-muessen-nicht-fuenf-prozent-ihres-gehalts-an-die-ukraine-abgeben/ correctiv.org 12 0 12
https://verifica.efe.com/este-video-no-muestra-un-bombardero-de-ee-uu-aterrizando-en-polonia-por-la-guerra-de-ucrania/ efe.com 12 0 12
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/10/21/nein-baerbock-sagte-nicht-sie-wolle-acht-bis-zehn-millionen-gefluechtete-in-deutschland-aufnehmen/ correctiv.org 11 0 41
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/11/25/al-jazeera-video-ueber-ukrainische-fans-und-nazi-schmierereien-in-katar-ist-gefaelscht/ correctiv.org 10 0 10
https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2022/11/23/ukraine-angeblicher-korruptionsbericht-ueber-veruntreuung-von-eu-hilfsgeldern-existiert-nicht/ correctiv.org 9 0 9
https://www.ellinikahoaxes.gr/2022/11/21/metadata-video-corpses-kupyansk-disinfo/ ellinikahoaxes.gr 8 0 8

Table 2: Top fact-checked content.

Fact-Checkers and Spreaders Location

The data used for creating the Twitter dataset is obtained from 143 fact-checking organisations.

The largest amount of fact-checked content comes from euvsdisinfo.eu (671 fact-checks) and the least from Verify Sy (1 fact-checks). Most fact-checked content are from VoxCheck (350) followed by LeadStories (255) and AFP fact checking (237) (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
U Country in eastern europe. 246 1905 164613
R Sovereign state in eastern europe and northern asia. 95 34 16315
G Province of china. 87 25 14166
E Third planet from the sun in the solar system. 82 1773 40428
A Sovereign state in south america. 70 15 15872
B Country in south america. 66 24 22056
I Country in southeast asia and oceania. 59 24 6451
w Published or operating in multiple or all jurisdictions on earth; special value for “place of publication” (p291) and “operating area” (p2541). 41 10 11787
T Country in southeast asia. 30 865 14248
S Sovereign state in northern europe. 30 78 38498

Table 3: Top locations mentioned in misinforming posts.

Person Description Current Week Previous Week Total
V Father of the president of russia. 83 78 67631
A President of mexico. 57 20 13018
J President of the united states since 2021. 47 874 10213
E President of france since 2017. 44 875 5780
M Russian television journalist. 9 13 2907
B King of thailand (1927-2016). 9 10 3641
R Capital of saudi arabia. 8 15 2081
P Thai politician, current prime minister of thailand. 8 5 4061
G American journalist, lawyer and writer. 7 6 3433
S Thai princess. 7 5 1751

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.