GlobalFact 12 in Rio de Janeiro: How are Fact-Checkers Fighting Disinformation?
We are just three days away from the start of the 12th Global Fact-Checking Summit, the largest fact-checking meeting in the world, which will take place between 25 and 27 June 2025 at the Fundação Getulio Vargas Comunicação in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), or online at globalfact12.com. Presented by the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in partnership with a number of Brazilian members, GlobalFact 12 aims to empower fact-checkers to maintain the industry's highest standards of excellence through discussions, training and networking events with world-renowned fact-checking experts.
Since 2014, more than 4,000 people have attended GlobalFact in cities around the world including London, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Rome, Cape Town, Oslo, Seoul and Sarajevo. Numerous industry-leading projects and fact-checking advancements have originated through past GlobalFacts, including International Fact-Checking Day, the IFCN Code of Principles and partnerships with major tech companies. IFCN director Angie Holan chatted with HQ about this mega-event in the ‘Marvellous City.’
Why did you decide to take your conference to Brazil?
We took our GlobalFact 12, the IFCN's annual conference, to Rio de Janeiro in June to bring together the global community of fact-checkers and improve our shared information ecosystem. We chose Brazil two years ago to host the conference because we simply wanted to bring the conference back to Latin America to support our vibrant fact-checking community. There, we have long-standing signatories such as Chequeado in Argentina, and in Brazil, we also have four fact-checking partners: Aos fatos; the Lupa agency; Estadão Verifica; and UOL Confere. Brazil is a huge country and a benchmark in the South American community for supporting and listening to our members. So, our intention was simply to bring it to Latin America, as we had not been there since before the pandemic.
While we're on the subject, how do you assess the state of Latin America in the fact-checking community?
Our network was formed in 2014 and fact-checkers in Latin America are among our founders, leading our community in collecting data and evaluating global reports. Despite all the challenges Latin America faces when it comes to information, there are committed groups of journalists who have formed fact-checking organisations and have been doing this work continuously. Brazil, for example, has had its own experience with hotbeds of disinformation and political polarisation that are very similar to those in the United States. It just so happens that this year we have brought it to the fore, as Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil's Supreme Court minister, has become one of the world's leading figures in trying to hold technology platforms responsible for disinformation. He is very much taking a hard line against Elon Musk’s X, shutting it down in the country at one point. His actions are controversial, and I'm neither endorsing nor condemning them. I'm just interested in Brazil's approach as a democracy and rule of law, and I think we should all observe and reflect on how the country is facing the social consequences of technological platforms. I flew from Washington, DC to Rio for this conference, where there is a completely different attitude. It's these different approaches, in the fact-checking community, that we want to understand.
What are the selection criteria when choosing the different host destinations for your conference?
We want to see how things work, not to endorse one plan over another, but just to see how different democracies hold these technological platforms to account; how they deal with disinformation that can have destabilising effects on governments and populations. I mean, we have not even talked about some of the examples of disinformation inspiring mass violence, such as in countries like Myanmar and India, where social issues and ethnic tensions motivate attacks on oppressed minority groups. This is also a great reason to rotate our conference through several countries where we can take the pulse of divergent reactions to live and real disinformation, and the ramifications of political propaganda.
This means that each conference is logistically difficult to organise. However, we feel that the benefits we get from travelling are quite large, as during GlobalFact 11 in Saravejo, Bosnia, we also learned a lot about the implications of Russian disinformation in Eastern Europe. In the same vein, in 2023, we looked at how propaganda is spreading across Asia at our conference in Seoul. Then, as we go to different places, we learn from each other. This learning component is extremely important for our network. We are always consulting each other to see how we can implement new initiatives and how we can improve our reports and bring fact-checking to more people.
The IFCN is working on a major project called ‘TruthAfrica’, an alliance between European and African fact-checkers about what is really going on in countries like Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Chad, Egypt, Uganda and Zambia. This arose from a wave of online disinformation about Africa, from anti-scientific claims about vaccines, propaganda involving Russia and anti-immigration accusations about refugees. How big is the gap between African and European audiences in their perception of free journalism?
Just to clarify, this is a project by two members of our network, so I can't take any credit for it. What happened was that the fact-checkers in Poland began to realise that a lot of the disinformation they were seeing was about Africa. Disinformation narratives about Africa were being disseminated to the European public. This was part of a political agenda aimed at creating division between Europe and Africa, or suggesting that Africa was wasting development money. Every disinformation narrative has its own little incentive behind it. Polish fact-checkers then teamed up with African fact-checkers to create new reports and debunk what was emerging first-hand. In this way, the core of the project was to inform the European public in an accurate and verified way about what was really going on in Africa.
This is the kind of collaboration that wouldn't be practical without the online space. The fact-checkers talk to each other via email and text messages, and share the text reports electronically so that they can edit them. These are the advantages that technology brings. I thought it was an admirable project for the way it utilised these cross-border collaborations to get to the bottom of what is verifiable and what is not.
Istinomjer co-creator Tijana Cvjetićanin, left, and Tech4Peace founder and president Aws Al-Saadi, right, speak as part of a panel discussed called “Fact-Checking During War” at GlobalFact 11 in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Photo: Vanja Čerimagić)
You wrote an opinion piece with a title that was a kind of rhetorical question around a call to action: ‘Will the future of fact-checking flourish or sink in 2025?’ Practically halfway through the year, how would you answer your own question?
I don't think it's looking too good. We're not thriving, that's for sure, but the year isn't over yet. There are some very deep problems with the business model for high-quality content in order to attract audiences. What seems to be happening is that algorithms are outperforming high-quality content in their ability to capture people's attention - and there's no really good answer to tackle this problem. Social media has some real problems with accuracy, with AI content, fraud and scams. People need to be vigilant. There are political ramifications that we can talk about, when certain people are finding advantage in propaganda and lies in the political sphere. However, they argue both sides. Some of the people who spread most of these lies accuse their opponents of being liars. You have to be on your guard. Therefore, we are all waiting to see how some of these cross-currents work out.
The United States doesn't seem to be doing much about it. The Trump administration, by the way it communicates and with the lies it constantly spreads, is allowing itself to be consumed or to manipulate these digital models of communication. We can see this by the attacks on science, medicine or universities in the US. I think we're all watching Europe which is taking a strong regulatory approach. We want to see what Europe will do with the implementation of the Digital Services Act.
How do you see these regulatory legislative acts? Would you like to highlight any special cases?
I feel like I'm going a little out of my depth, because although I follow Europe closely, I'm not European. So I'm not in the field and some of our fact-checkers follow much more closely than I do. What I try to look at in Europe is whether they will enforce their standards across all technology companies; the specific case we have now is that of X, as it is not only turning a blind eye to conspiracy theories, but also promoting them. With these political alliances in the United States, this social network is in any case taking sides. What will happen there? I don't know.
These are the geopolitical trends that I think the fact-checkers are observing. I believe that the general public is aware of these issues and that they are observing certain people in their communities defending trustworthy sources and credible platforms, because these are under attack in the US at the moment.
Do you have a final word for our association community? How can they protect themselves from dubious and false information?
I would say that it's very important to speak out against false information and correct it with correct information. I think there was a time when we thought that if we ignored bad information, it would just go away, but that hasn't been our experience. So now I'm encouraging everyone to be very proactive and speak up when they see something that's not right. The other thing I would say is that we all need to work together in the knowledge-seeking community. We all need to support each other, regardless of what area we work in. I think the support of colleagues at this time is very important.
Don't miss our special interview with Angie Holan in HQ Summer issue #120
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