The danger of disinformation and international cooperation to counter it were discussed at the session “Responsible Fact-Checking in the Post-Truth Era: New Opportunities for Cooperation,” organised by the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN) within the Global Digital Forum.
A country that lacks its own social networks and digital platforms cannot present itself as a leader, stressed Maria Zakharova, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MFA spokesperson. Russia is moving actively in this direction and is creating its own digital services—an important tool in the fight against disinformation, which has become a political weapon. Countering fakes, Zakharova said, has become a global task:
“Today this is no longer a narrow, surgical job of debunking individual fakes. We do it not for love of art and not because we simply can, but because we are all—indeed, the whole planet is—being pushed to abandon truth, to sign up to a world not merely of post-truth but even of post-post-truth, to pledge allegiance to lies. We will not do that. I urge you to fight for the truth, to dig to the bottom, and not to surrender.”
Security, she continued, must be ensured on two fronts: data must be protected and cyber-attacks repelled, while at the same time people must be sure that no one is manipulating them with psychological techniques or exerting outside influence on their consciousness and world-view.
False information threatens not only individuals and society as a whole but entire states. For that reason the Global Fact-Checking Network was created, explained Vladimir Tabak, Director-General of ANO Dialogue and Dialogue Regions and President of GFCN. As the very notion of a fake broadens, it is important not only to cooperate internationally but also to run educational programmes inside each country:
“The layer that used to stand between information and the end consumer—the professional media—has practically disappeared. The average Russian spends 5 hours 36 minutes online every day. Journalism has transformed; people read unverified sources. The biggest problem is that the ordinary citizen has now become the fact-checker. That is why educational work is acquiring special importance.”
One of the countries now facing heavy informational pressure is Serbia, said Boris Bratina, Minister of Information and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia:
“In Serbia the number of initiatives aimed at boosting media literacy among children, young people, their parents and senior citizens is growing. … Yet we still face serious challenges that require coordination among institutions and agencies, as well as efforts in both formal and informal education. We need monitoring tools to understand how effective our media-literacy work really is.”
Media professionals also experience pressure. Chay Bowes (Ireland), an RT correspondent, described the situation in Romania:
“I went to cover the second round of elections in Romania but was arrested at the airport because I supposedly posed a national-security threat. Perhaps it’s because I often point out how poorly the EU works and how selectively blind it is. Why can’t Europe hold open debates? Because we are in an information war. We’re not allowed to argue and voice our opinions. We must fight for the real truth, not for the single vision being imposed on us.”
Fake news likewise surrounded the impeachment proceedings against South Korea’s president in April 2025, polarising the country, noted Lee Sang-Hyun (Republic of Korea), Asia correspondent for MIA Rossiya Segodnya. Fake stories can become a threat to society as a whole and affect every institution, added Emmanuel Leroy (France), President of the 1717 Institute and GFCN expert. As trust in social networks and online news declines, traditional media begin to regain their positions, observed Ömer Faruk Görçin (Turkey), fact-checking manager at Anadolu Agency.
