THE EU IS THE MOST TARGETED TOPIC IN JANUARY
The 34 organizations* part of the EDMO fact-checking network that contributed to this brief published a total of 1.633 fact-checking articles in January 2026. Out of these articles, 112 (7%) focused on disinformation related to the EU; 96 (6%) on Ukraine-related disinformation; 88 (5%) on disinformation related to immigration; 59 (4%) on climate change-related disinformation; 25 (2%) on COVID-19-related disinformation; 12 (1%) on the crisis in Gaza; and 12 (1%) on disinformation about LGBTQ+ and gender issues.
During the month of January, the most targeted topic by disinformation was the European Union. Meanwhile false news related to the war in Ukraine and to immigration decreased respectively by three and four percentage points.
The share of disinformation on the other topics monitored by these briefs remained stable, with only minor fluctuations.
DISINFORMATION ON THE EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union is a recurring target of disinformation circulating in Europe. This disinformation stream never fell under 5% of the total detected disinformation in the last 12 months, and in January 2026 was the highest among the ones monitored by EDMO. This probably depends on the adoption of the Euro by Bulgaria and on the signing of the EU-Mercosur Agreement, which sparked farmers’ protests in various countries. The corruption scandal involving ex-Vice President of European Commission Federica Mogherini also contributed to the circulation of false claims on various European representatives
More in detail, claims that newly printed “Bulgarian euros” can’t be used in countries such as Germany have been debunked in Bulgaria, while across Europe false news circulated in relation to the specifications of the EU-Mercosur agreement as well as disinformation on the alleged repression of the related farmers’ protests. Artificial intelligence was widely used to generate images and videos of the protests, such as the one of a herd of bulls being directed against the police in France. Meanwhile, European top institutional figures, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas, and EU Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, were targeted by false claims.
A NEW RECORD: ONE VERIFIED FALSE CLAIM OUT OF FIVE IS GENERATED WITH AI
The share of disinformation content created or manipulated with AI has reached a new record. Out of 1.633 fact-checking articles, 325 focused on such content, representing 20% of the total.
The share of AI-generated disinformation has steadily increased over the past months. As highlighted in the previous slides, the crises in Venezuela, Iran, USA as well as the farmers’ protests in the EU have fueled the generation of misleading AI content. Specifically, Maldita’s investigation unraveled a network of TikTok accounts exploiting political polarization to monetize their content, with AI videos showing protests in Iran, Venezuela, or in support of Palestine. The train accident in Spain, as well as the extraordinary snowfall in Kamchatka, Russia, were also the object of AI generated content production: this suggests a trend of using AI as a monetization tool that relies on exploiting breaking news to share emotional and false content.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATIONS ABOUT THE NEW EDMO MONTHLY BRIEF
