AFP joins five new European hubs to fight disinformation

The European Commission has selected Agence France-Presse (AFP), a global leader in digital investigation, to be part of five new hubs dedicated to the fight against disinformation in 10 European countries.

The decision following a tender offer cements AFP’s position as a major player in the fight against disinformation in Europe.

Following a hub for Germany and Austria launched in November (GADMO), similar projects were launched for Romania and Bulgaria (BROD), Croatia and Slovenia (ADMO) and Greece, Malta and Cyprus (MedDMO) on Dec. 1. The final hub, for Hungary (HDMO), will follow on Jan. 1, 2023.

The hubs are part of the European Digital Media Observatory, a network of digital media hubs created by the European Commission in 2020 to fight disinformation across Europe led by the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Funded by the EU but independent in their work, the hubs will form a European multidisciplinary community that brings together academic researchers, fact-checkers, media practitioners and other relevant actors in order to actively detect, analyze and expose disinformation campaigns.

On the hub websites, members of the public will be able to:

• Access a wide variety of fact-checks on fake news or dubious information circulating on social media.
• View academic research on the main trends in disinformation.
• Learn how to spot fake news through tutorials.

“Being chosen by the European Commission and the launch of these new platforms across Europe is a huge vote of confidence in the work AFP has been doing for years in digital investigation — a field in which AFP has become a leading player and which represents a major challenge for democracies,” said Phil Chetwynd, global news director at AFP. 

AFP will be working together with the following organizations in the new hubs:

• GADMO — German-Austrian Digital Media Observatory (Germany and Austria)
  Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), Austria Presse Agentur (APA), Correctiv (German nonprofit investigative journalism network), TU Dortmund University.
• BROD — Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media (Romania and Bulgaria)
  Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski, Bucharest National School of Political Science and Public Administration, Bulgarian national television.
• ADMO — Adria Digital Media Observatory (Croatia and Slovenia)
  University of Dubrovnik, University of Zagreb, Gong (Croatian NGO), Adria News, Ostro (independent network of investigative journalists in Slovenia).
• MedDMO — Mediterranean Digital Media Observatory (Greece, Malta and Cyprus)
  Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ellinika Hoaxes (independent fact-checking group based in Greece), Times of Malta.
• HDMO-Lakmusz — Hungarian Digital Media Observatory-Lakmusz (Hungary)
  The Hungarian hub will be an expanded version of the Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (HDMO), better known in Hungary as Lakmusz (established as a pilot project co-funded by the European Commission in late 2021). For this new phase, AFP will work with several independent organizations, including the research institute Political Capital and the Hungarian publisher Magyar Jeti.

AFP has also been a partner in three existing EDMO hubs since 2021, working with the following organizations:

• DE FACTO (France), defacto-observatoire.fr
  Medialab at Sciences Po Paris, Centre for Media and Information Education (CLEMI), fact-checkers from the French media landscape.
• CEDMO — Central European Digital Media Observatory (Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia), cedmohub.eu
  Charles University Prague, Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies (Slovak research institute dedicated to working on improving algorithms to detect misinformation).
• EDMO-Belux (Belgium and Luxembourg), belux.edmo.eu/en
  Vrije Universiteit Brussel, RTL Luxembourg.

AFP currently employs more than 130 journalists dedicated to digital investigations in more than 30 countries. They are constantly in touch with journalists across the agency’s global network and their work is published in 24 languages on factcheck.afp.com.

AFP is a member of the International Fact-Checking Network, which has drawn up a code of principles to be followed by fact-checkers. The agency also participated in drawing up a code of professional integrity as part of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN). In addition, it is part of a fact-checking program at Facebook to identify and report false information.