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NORDIS – Fact-checking the Russian-Ukrainian war: the challenges of resources and tools

NORDIS – Fact-checking the Russian-Ukrainian war: the challenges of resources and tools

The University of Bergen (Norway), a member of the NORDIS hub, is researching to identify the challenges faced by fact-checkers when faced with war propaganda. The results of the quantitative part of this research are now available online: https://ohmy.shinyapps.io/globalfact/. It consisted of an online survey conducted last year during the conference Global Fact 9, organized in Oslo by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Eighty-five fact-checkers from 46 countries participated in the survey, with the majority identifying as fact-checkers and journalists. Results indicate that audio-visual contents were the primary focus of fact-checking related to the war, according to 78.83% of respondents. While 47.56% felt they needed more tools, accessing reliable sources of information appeared as the most challenging, followed by the language barrier and finding experts on either side of the conflict. Fact-checkers expressed additional difficulty in providing context and dealing with war propaganda. The main limitations of the tools they use to fact-check the war are the limited accuracy of automated translation and the need for more context in the results fact-checking tools provide.