EUvsDisinfo quiz

Incorrect

“EP Today” (short for “European Parliament today”) is a self-proclaimed “monthly news magazine for the European Parliament”. Sure enough, with a name including one of the major institutions of the European Union, together with a cursive logo in a ring of 12-stars on a blue background, you may get the impression that this website is affiliated with the European Parliament. Except: “EP Today” uses the name of the European Parliament in a misleading way and without any legal authorisation. The European Parliament contacted “EP Today” in September 2019 regarding the unauthorised use of the institution’s name and suggested ways to rectify the situation and stop misleading the public.

On their about page, “EP Today” states it is “designed only for the MEPs  to write article about issues which they think are currently important and need attention of all their colleagues and other policy makers.” However, more than 99% of articles that appear on eptoday.com are not from “EP Today”. Since October 24th 2018, 47% of the articles are word-for-word copies of articles from RT.com. Often, the entire homepage is filled with exact copies of RT articles. The same article can even appear multiple times on the same page. It is an example of “information laundering” of content from state-affiliated media, such as RT or Sputnik. Visit the Techniques section to learn more about other manipulative techniques.

Both the website and its social media accounts are now suspended.

We covered EP Today in one of our articles.

Incorrect

You should always be vigilant when reading state-affiliated accounts. If it’s an account affiliated with the Russian government, special vigilance is required. Twitter has introduced special labels adverting users about the accounts that controlled by “certain official representatives of governments, state-affiliated media entities and individuals associated with those entities”. For more information about the pro-Kremlin media ecosystem, visit the Understand section.

This particular tweet refers to the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol and alleges that the hospital was non-operational and was used as a base by the Ukrainian military. In a later reply to this tweet, the Embassy added that the attack was staged by Ukraine and a social media beauty influencer was hired to play the role of the pregnant woman.

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative, trying to whitewash the war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. There is no evidence that the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital was staged. According to reports, there were at least three dead and 17 wounded after the airstrikes. To which will be added a few days later a pregnant woman and the child she was carrying, who died from injuries. Read our article addressing the bombing of the Mariupol hospital for more details.

This tweet has been removed by Twitter.

Incorrect

This is disinformation and a falsified image. The Nazi narrative is, sadly, also not a new one. For many years, Russian state-controlled media have claimed that various states and entities are ruled by Nazis or permeated by Nazi ideology. But for the Kremlin, Ukraine – a country where millions died fighting Nazism in WW2, where the Nazi ideology is banned, and that is currently governed by the grandson of a Holocaust survivor – is the most ‘Nazi’ of them all. The EUvsDisinfo database contains nearly 500 examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation claims about ‘Nazi/Fascist Ukraine’.

In the Kremlinverse, ‘Nazis’ and ‘Nazism’ are in no way linked to the actual history or ideology of National Socialism or fascism, nor to contemporary manifestations of far-right ideas. Rather, anyone deemed hostile to Russia or the idea of ‘Russkiy Mir’ – a geopolitical project of uniting the Russian-speaking world under the sceptre of the Kremlin – is labelled a ‘Nazi’.

In this specific case, a falsified image is used. The Insider also published a debunk of this claim, including a picture of the real bracelet.

Incorrect

The narrative that European cities will freeze without energy from Russia is not new. A defining feature of pro-Kremlin disinformation is its repetitiveness. This is not by accident or oversight, it is by design: repetition makes lies sound more believable. The narrative about an imminent collapse is frequently used by pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets. Target audiences that – legitimately or not – already fear political and social turmoil in their countries are particularly susceptible to this narrative.

For some time now, pro-Kremlin outlets have been painting an apocalyptic vision of the upcoming winter in Europe, foreseeing an energy deficit and mass protests. They go so far as to claim that Russia should prepare ‘tourism packages’ for Europeans who will come to ‘survive’ winter in ‘comfortable Russia’ and that without Russian gas Germany will turn into an agrarian state. In short, they argue that Europe has no other option but to betray Ukraine, as we supposedly have no alternatives to Russian gas. This is simply not true: while the EU does have to adjust its energy portfolio and this will require quite some effort – the EU can and will free itself from the dependence on Russian energy.

Incorrect

This is a real, factual news article. It has been reported that in the summer of 2022, mayors of several European capitals had video calls with a deepfake of the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko. Deepfakes are AI-generated falsified photos, videos, or soundbites. Deepfake videos synthetically recreate an individual’s face, body, voice, and physical gestures and particular dangerous form of influence operations.

Pro tip: Before you retweet this tweet to warn others, be careful! The account that shared it does look suspicious: its name does not inspire confidence and its profile photo uses a Twitter symbol that is displayed when no results on Twitter are found. Therefore, before retweeting this or similar tweets, it is advisable to find out more about the particular Twitter account that shared it. You can also check if this photo has been used somewhere else on the internet. Use tools such as Google Reverse Image, Rev Eye, TinEye or Yandex image search (particularly if you are looking for photos from Russian outlets).

The photo in this tweet comes from an article by the Guardian.

Incorrect

This tweet is not reliable. In February 2022, a tweet from an account masquerading as CNN falsely announced the ‘first American casualty of the Ukraine crisis.’ Though the information was verifiably false, it led to social media attacks on the legitimacy of CNN as a news source.

The real CNN does not have a separate account for Ukraine and the account in the post had just 129 followers and was not verified by Twitter. If you see something posted by an account claiming to be a big outlet like CNN, BBC etc and it does not have a blue verified badge it very strongly suggests that this is not an authentic account.

Incorrect

It is very important to avoid helping unverified information to be spread even further. Before sharing any content, there are some important things to consider. Sharing articles that, for example, falsely claim the coronavirus can be prevented by drinking water (or even cured by drinking bleach!) can have serious public health consequences and may encourage people to disregard authoritative medical guidelines. The claim about water preventing you from catching COVID-19 was quickly debunked by reliable outlets.

In a case like this, your friend is most likely not spreading this with the intention to harm you or anyone else but false (or unverified) claims online can still have very real consequences. The more a false post is shared online, the more it starts to resemble truth. Therefore, always think before you share!

Incorrect

This is not reliable information, this is disinformation. The footage used as “proof” in this disinformation story comes from the time when the Ukrainian president posed in front of a chroma screen in order to appear as a hologram at several tech festivals throughout the world in June 2022. The video used as “evidence” was released on social media by Talesmith, the technological firm that made it possible, and in no way shows what this disinformation story alleges.

The second purpose of this disinformation narrative is to create doubts about reports on Russian atrocities in Ukraine, despite massive evidence proving them - including testimonies from witnesses and victims, video footage, satellite images and forensic findings.

This is a classic disinformation trick of taking things out of context. The claim is demonstrably false and intends to discredit the Ukrainian president. EUvsDisinfo has debunked it here. Disinformation about Ukraine forms almost 40% of our database of disinformation cases. You can read more about this narrative in the Understand – Most common narratives section.

Tip: If you are unsure about the video content that you see online or something seems fishy – do not share it and instead look for facts first. You can install a plugin called WeVerify on your computer that helps you analyse images, videos and much more.