Portugal was the target of Russian misinformation about sending aircraft to help fight forest fires in August, concluded the monthly report of the European Observatory of Digital Media (EDMO).
According to Edmo’s monthly report released today, of the 1,441 articles intercepted by the 33 organizations that constitute the facts verification network, 127 (9%) focused on climate change and 99 (7%) in Ukraine-related disinformation.
In addition, 90 (6%) were misinformation about the European Union (EU), 90 (6%) referring to immigration issues, 79 (5%) related to conflict between Israel and Hamas, 49 (3%) involved misinformation about Covid-19 and 18 (1%) on LGBT+ and genre issues.
“The theme most targeted by misinformation in August was climate change, in line with the growing trend last month,” when the disinformation on this topic recorded about 8%.
They contributed to this increase, false narratives related to extreme events, as well as “pro-Russian misinformation that has taken over false news about the environment: for example Ukraine is portrayed as guilty by extreme rainfall in Lithuania,” says Edmo.
“In Greece and Portugal, on the other hand, Russia has been portrayed as a benevolent power, as it allegedly offered to send airplanes and help the local population fight forest fires,” the observatory adds.
In August, Lusa verified had already denied this narrative, as Portugal did not ask the Russian Federation to send amphibious aircraft to help fight the fire, contrary to what Greek MEO Nikolas Farantouris said.
If this request were true, it would violate the current sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia.
False news related to war in Ukraine and EU have also increased, “as with the misinformation about the crisis in Gaza, the narrative continues that hunger is not real or widely exaggerated.”
Although the sharing of distress -related misinformation and LGBT+ issues decreased compared to July, false news and misleading on other monitored topics remained stable.
The report also highlights the summit between Putin and Trump, Alaska (USA), as well as meetings that followed several European leaders, which increased the virality of several allegations “designed to ridicule and belit down the European Union, or portray its members as warmth.”
In this sense, “Pro-Russian misinformation has contributed to spread this image of a militarized and aggressive Europe, with false stories that present, for example, British military officials captured during a Russian attack in Ukraine.”
August was still marked by the beginning of the application of tariffs between the US and the EU, but this theme seems to have been temporarily left out of misinformation narratives, the observatory says.
The percentage of fake news using content generated by artificial intelligence (IA) remained stable in August, with 147 (10%) articles addressing the use of this technology in misinformation.
Nevertheless, Edmo warns that in recent months users are increasingly resorting to AI models to verify information, inadvertently contributing to disinformation spread.
