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 12 December 2022 and Monday 19 December 2022.

249,619 Misinforming Tweets
New:+69 Trend:+20
88,899 Fact-checking Tweets
New:+64 Trend:-123
5,036 Fact-checks
143 Fact-checking Organisations

Key Content and Provenance

During the period between Monday 12 December 2022 and Monday 19 December 2022, 69 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 afp.com with an increase of +25 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 1tv.ru 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 sputniknews.lat with a change of +19 compared to the previous total spread for the same domain whereas the domain that saw the least relative change was afp.com with a change of -61 compared to the previous period.

The all time most important domain is twitter.com with a total of 180,135 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://sputniknews.lat/20221213/fuentes-sirias-a-sputnik-los-radicales-islamistas-se-dirigen-a-ucrania-para-luchar-a-su-lado-1133511955.html euvsdisinfo.eu sputniknews.lat 18 0 18
https://www.pronews.gr/amyna-asfaleia/to-nato-therise-tous-oukranous-traymaties-paredose-60-000-mpoukales-aima-me-aids-kai-ipatitida-b-kai-c Ellinika Hoaxes (Greek Hoaxes) pronews.gr 12 0 12
https://ria.ru/20221213/kherson-1838376529.html euvsdisinfo.eu ria.ru 7 0 7
https://rumble.com/v10miez-world-premiere-watch-the-water.html LeadStories rumble.com 4 4 6791
https://twitter.com/R82938886/status/1574865224108220423 Facta.news twitter.com 3 3 16885
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 3 2 3960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQSYmda0Sc LeadStories youtube.com 2 1 9023
https://svpressa.ru/politic/article/355149/ euvsdisinfo.eu svpressa.ru 2 1 3
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254217.shtml StopFake.org globaltimes.cn 2 0 1558
https://sputniknews.lat/20221214/falsedad-la-unica-arma-de-occidente-para-sancionar-1133558316.html euvsdisinfo.eu sputniknews.lat 2 0 2

Table 1: Top misinforming content.

Fact-check URL Domain Current Week Previous Week Total
https://factuel.afp.com/doc.afp.com.333N4BC afp.com 14 0 14
https://www.ellinikahoaxes.gr/2022/12/14/rebecca-maciorowski-is-not-an-american-mercenary-killed-in-ukraine/ ellinikahoaxes.gr 6 0 6
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/the-us-nato-and-europe-transformed-the-military-operation-against-nazis-into-a-full-scale-war-on-russia euvsdisinfo.eu 4 0 4
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.32JY8PP-1 afp.com 3 4 66
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/apr/07/facebook-posts/no-zelenskyy-and-soros-are-not-cousins/ politifact.com 3 0 138
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/ukraine-is-built-on-a-pagan-cult euvsdisinfo.eu 3 0 3
https://voxukraine.org/en/false-liudmila-denisova-admitted-to-lying-about-rapes-committed-against-ukrainians-by-russian-occupiers/ voxukraine.org 2 3 30
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.326C94R afp.com 2 1 296
https://factcheck.kz/claim-checking/verdict/obvinila-li-bbc-news-ukrainu-v-obstrele-vokzala-kramatorska-proverka-reuters-fact-check/ factcheck.kz 2 1 63
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/feb/28/candace-owens/fact-checking-claims-nato-us-broke-agreement-again/ politifact.com 2 0 878

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. 155 267 165238
M Capital and most populous city of russia. 29 151 21013
K Human settlement. 24 9 12828
E Third planet from the sun in the solar system. 22 86 40620
R Sovereign state in eastern europe and northern asia. 19 19 16404
C Municipality of brazil. 18 5 11889
D French department. 15 2 8840
G Federated state of brazil. 12 5 14219
T Country in southeast asia. 10 2 14279
N Capital of niger. 8 85 13550

Table 3: Top locations mentioned in misinforming posts.

Person Description Current Week Previous Week Total
V President of russia (1999–2008, 2012–present). 48 252 67972
M Russian television journalist. 23 52 2985
P Thai politician, current prime minister of thailand. 23 2 4089
A President of mexico. 18 9 13063
D Ukrainian politician. 17 0 2162
B King of thailand (1927-2016). 7 107 3795
G American journalist, lawyer and writer. 6 51 3494
J President of the united states since 2021. 4 6 10256
E President of france since 2017. 4 4 5807
H Ukrainian politician (1931-2013). 4 0 2402

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.