Europe Austria Politicians in Austria dealt with the impact of fake news and its spread on social media after the 2016 presidential campaign in the country. In December 2016, a court in Austria issued an injunction on Facebook Europe, mandating it block negative postings related to
Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek,
Austrian Green Party Chairwoman. According to
The Washington Post the postings to Facebook about her "appeared to have been spread via a fake profile" and directed derogatory epithets towards the Austrian politician. The derogatory postings were likely created by the identical fake profile that had previously been utilized to attack
Alexander van der Bellen, who won the election for
President of Austria.
Czech Republic Fake news outlets in the Czech Republic redistribute news in Czech and English originally produced by Russian sources. Czech president
Miloš Zeman has been supporting media outlets accused of spreading fake news. The
Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats (CTHH) is unit of the
Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic primarily aimed at countering disinformation, fake news,
hoaxes and foreign
propaganda. The CTHH started operations on January 1, 2017. The CTHH has been criticized by Czech President
Miloš Zeman, who said: "We don't need censorship. We don't need thought police. We don't need a new agency for press and information as long as we want to live in a free and democratic society." In 2017 media activists started a website, Konspiratori.cz, maintaining a list of conspiracy and fake news outlets in Czech.
European Union In 2018 the
European Commission introduced a first voluntary
code of practice on disinformation. In 2022 this will become a strengthen co-regulation scheme, with responsibility shared between the regulators and companies signatory to the code. It will complement the earlier
Digital Services Act agreed on by the 27-country European Union, which already includes a section on combating disinformation.
Finland Officials from 11 countries met in
Helsinki in November 2016 and planned the formation of a center to combat disinformation cyber-warfare, which includes the spread of fake news on social media. The center is planned to be located in Helsinki and combine efforts from 10 countries, including Sweden, Germany, Finland and the U.S.
Juha Sipilä,
Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2019, planned to address the topic of the center in Spring 2017 with a motion before
Parliament. Deputy Secretary of State for EU Affairs Jori Arvonen said cyber-warfare, such as hybrid cyber-warfare intrusions into Finland from Russia and the
Islamic State, became an increasing problem in 2016. Arvonen cited examples including online fake news, disinformation, and the "
little green men" of the
Russo-Ukrainian War.
France During the ten-year period preceding 2016, France was witness to an increase in popularity of
far-right alternative news sources called the ( referring to
fascist); known as the
extreme right on the Internet. These sites increased skepticism towards
mainstream media from both left and right perspectives. In September 2016, the country faced controversy regarding fake websites providing false information about
abortion. The
National Assembly moved forward with intentions to ban such fake sites.
Laurence Rossignol, women's minister for France, informed parliament though the fake sites look neutral, in actuality their intentions were specifically targeted to give women fake information. 2017 presidential election. France saw an uptick in amounts of disinformation and propaganda, primarily in the midst of election cycles. A study looking at the diffusion of political news during the 2017 presidential election cycle suggests that one in four links shared in social media comes from sources that actively contest traditional media narratives.
Facebook corporate deleted 30,000 Facebook accounts in France associated with fake political information. In April 2017,
Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign was attacked by the fake news articles more than the campaigns of conservative candidate
Marine Le Pen and socialist candidate
Benoît Hamon. One of the fake articles even announced that Le Pen won the presidency before the people of France had even voted. Macron said he would combat fake news of the sort that had been spread during his election campaign. Initially, the leak was attributed to
APT28, a group tied to Russia's GRU military intelligence directorate. However, the head of the French cyber-security agency,
ANSSI, later said that there was no evidence that the hack leading to the leaks had anything to do with Russia, saying that the attack was so simple, that "we can imagine that it was a person who did this alone. They could be in any country."
Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel lamented the problem of fraudulent news reports in a November 2016 speech, days after announcing her campaign for a fourth term as leader of her country. In a speech to the German parliament, Merkel was critical of such fake sites, saying they harmed political discussion. Merkel called attention to the need of government to deal with
Internet trolls, bots, and fake news websites. She warned that such fraudulent news websites were a force increasing the power of
populist extremism. Merkel called fraudulent news a growing phenomenon that might need to be regulated in the future. The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency
Federal Intelligence Service,
Bruno Kahl, warned of the potential for
cyberattacks by Russia in the
2017 German election. He said the cyberattacks would take the form of the intentional spread of disinformation. Kahl said the goal is to increase chaos in political debates. Germany's domestic intelligence agency
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution Chief,
Hans-Georg Maassen, said sabotage by Russian intelligence was a present threat to German
information security. German government officials and security experts later said there was no Russian interference during the 2017 German federal election. The German term , or
lying press, has been used since the 19th century and specifically during World War One as a strategy to attack news spread by political opponents in the 19th and 20th centuries. The award-winning German journalist
Claas Relotius resigned from in 2018 after admitting numerous instances of
journalistic fraud. In early April 2020, Berlin politician
Andreas Geisel alleged that a shipment of 200,000 N95 masks that it had ordered from American producer
3M's China facility were intercepted in
Bangkok and diverted to the United States during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Berlin police president stated that she believed "this is related to the US government's export ban." However, Berlin police confirmed that the shipment was not seized by U.S. authorities, but was said to have simply been bought at a better price, widely believed to be from a German dealer or China. This revelation outraged the Berlin opposition, whose
CDU parliamentary group leader Burkard Dregger accused Geisel of "deliberately misleading Berliners" in order "to cover up its own inability to obtain protective equipment".
FDP interior expert Marcel Luthe said "Big names in international politics like Berlin's senator Geisel are blaming others and telling US piracy to serve anti-American clichés."
Hungary Hungary's illiberal and populist prime minister
Viktor Orbán has cast
George Soros, financier and philanthropist, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, as the mastermind of a plot to undermine the country's sovereignty, replace native Hungarians with immigrants and destroy traditional values. This propaganda technique, together with
anti-Semitism still present in the country, seems to appeal to his right-wing voters, as it mobilizes them by seeding fear in society, creating an enemy image and enabling Orbán to present himself as the protector of the nation from the illusion of this enemy.
Italy Journalists must be registered with the (ODG) () and respect its disciplinary and training obligations, to guarantee "correct and truthful information, intended as right of individuals and of the community". Under certain circumstances, spreading fake news may constitute a criminal offence under the Italian penal code. Since 2018 it is possible to report fake news directly on the
Polizia di Stato website. The phenomenon is monitored by the
DIS, supported by
AISE and
AISI.
Malta In response to the growing concern over the spread of disinformation, Malta has introduced legal provisions to address the issue within its
Criminal Code.. Article 82 of Malta's Criminal Code specifically targets the malicious dissemination of fake news. The law stipulates that anyone who deliberately spreads false information likely to alarm the public, disturb public order, or create commotion among certain classes of the public can be sentenced to
imprisonment for a term of one to three months. If the dissemination of false news results in a
disturbance, the penalty increases to imprisonment for a term of one to six months, along with a possible fine of up to €1,000. In February and March 2024, the
Times of Malta published a series of articles alleging that
Papaya Ltd was involved in money laundering activities and had criminal connections with
Russian organized crime. These allegations led to public alarm and concern. However, subsequent investigations by British journalists from
Western Morning News and Financial Monthly revealed that the accusations were baseless. It was found that Papaya Ltd. had been conducting routine inspections as part of its anti-money laundering (
AML) procedures due to suspicious activities by one of its clients, which turned out to be linked to the financial
pyramid scheme. The inspections were not targeted at Papaya Ltd. itself but were part of a broader investigation. These investigative reports clarified that no governmental authorities had made any allegations against Papaya Ltd., and the initial reports by the Times of Malta were determined to be false.
Netherlands In March 2018, the
European Union's
East StratCom Task Force compiled a list dubbed a "hall of shame" of articles with suspected
Kremlin attempts to influence political decisions. However, controversy arose when three Dutch media outlets claimed they had been wrongfully singled out because of quotes attributed to people with non-mainstream views.
Poland's anti-EU
Law and Justice (PiS) government has been accused of spreading "illiberal disinformation" to undermine public confidence in the
European Union. Maria Snegovaya of Columbia University said: "The true origins of this phenomenon are local. The policies of Fidesz and Law and Justice have a lot in common with Putin's own policies." However, Kaczyński has never uttered those words in the commented speech.
Romania On March 16, 2020,
Romanian President
Klaus Iohannis signed an emergency decree, giving authorities the power to remove, report or close websites spreading "fake news" about the COVID-19 pandemic, with no opportunity to appeal.
Serbia In 2018, the
International Research & Exchanges Board described the situation in Serbian media as the worst in recent history and stated that the
Media Sustainability Index has dropped due to the most polarized media in almost 20 years, an increase in fake news and editorial pressure on media. According to Serbian investigative journalism portal
Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, more than 700 fake news articles were published on the front pages of pro-government tabloids in 2018. Many of them were about alleged attacks on president
Aleksandar Vučić and
coup attempts, as well as messages of support to him by
Vladimir Putin. Since Vučić's party came to power, Serbia has seen a surge of
Internet trolls and pages on social networks praising the government and attacking its critics, free media and the opposition in general. It includes a handful of dedicated employee-run fake accounts as well as the Facebook page associated with a Serbian franchise of the far-right
Breitbart News website, which has disputed accuracy.
Spain Fake news in Spain has become much more prevalent in the 2010s, but has been prominent throughout Spain's history. The United States government published a fake article in regards to the purchase of the
Philippines from Spain, which they had already purchased. Despite this, the topic of fake news has traditionally not been given much attention in Spain until the newspaper
El País launched a blog dedicated strictly to truthful news, entitled , meaning . David Alandete, the managing editor of
El País, stated that many people misinterpret fake news as real because the sites "have similar names, typography, layouts and are deliberately confusing". Alandete made it the new mission of
El País "to respond to fake news". María Ramírez of
Univision Communications has stated that much of the political fake news circulating in Spain is due to the lack of investigative journalism on the topics. Most recently
El País has created a fact-checking position for five employees, to try and debunk the fake news released. According to the
Oxford Internet Institute, eight of the top 10 "junk news" sources during the
2018 Swedish general election campaign were Swedish, and "Russian sources comprised less than 1% of the total number of URLs shared in the data sample."
Ukraine Since
Euromaidan and the beginning of the
Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014, the Ukrainian media circulated several fake news stories and misleading images, including a photograph of a dead rebel with a
Photoshopped tattoo which allegedly indicated that he belonged to Russian Special Forces and the threat of a Russian nuclear attack against Ukrainian troops. The recurring theme of these fake news stories was that Russia was solely to blame for the war. On May 29, 2018, the Ukrainian media and state officials announced that the Russian journalist
Arkady Babchenko was assassinated in his apartment in Kyiv. Later, Babchenko appeared to be alive, and the
Security Service of Ukraine claimed that the staged assassination was needed to arrest a person who allegedly was planning a real assassination.
Alexander Baunov, writing for Carnegie.ru, mentioned that the staged assassination of Babchenko was the first instance of fake news delivered directly by the highest officials of a state.
United Kingdom Under King
Edward I of England () "a statute was passed which made it a grave offence to devise or tell any false news of prelates, dukes, earls, barons, or nobles of the realm." In 1702
Queen Anne of England issued a proclamation "for restraining the spreading false news, and printing and publishing of irreligious and seditious papers and libels". On December 8, 2016,
Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
Alex Younger delivered a speech to journalists at the
MI6 headquarters where he called fake news and propaganda damaging to democracy. Younger said the mission of MI6 was to combat propaganda and fake news in order to deliver to his government a strategic advantage in the
information-warfare arena, and to assist other nations including Europe. He called such methods of fake-news propaganda online a "fundamental threat to our sovereignty". Younger said all nations that hold democratic values should feel the same worry over fake news. However, definitions of
fake news have been controversial in the UK. Dr Claire Wardle advised some UK Members of Parliament against using the term in certain circumstances "when describing the complexity of information disorder", as the term
fake news is "woefully inadequate": Neither the words 'fake' nor 'news' effectively capture this polluted information ecosystem. Much of the content used as examples in debates on this topic are not fake, they are genuine but used out of context or manipulated. Similarly, to understand the entire ecosystem of polluted information, we need to consider far more than content that mimics 'news'. In October 2020, a hoax claim made by a spoof
Twitter account, about the supposed reopening of
Woolworths stores, was repeated without verification by news sites including the
Daily Mail and
Daily Mirror (and the latter's regional sister titles).
Asia China Fake news during the 2016 U.S. election spread to China. Articles popularized within the United States were translated into Chinese and spread within China. China then published an editorial in its
Communist Party newspaper
The Global Times called "Western media's crusade against Facebook", and criticized "unpredictable" political problems posed by freedoms enjoyed by users of
Twitter,
Google, and
Facebook. China government leaders meeting in
Wuzhen at the third
World Internet Conference in November 2016 said fake news in the U.S. election justified adding more curbs to free and open use of the Internet. China Deputy Minister Ren Xianliang, official at the
Cyberspace Administration of China, said increasing online participation led to "harmful information" and fraud. Kam Chow Wong, a former
Hong Kong law enforcement official and criminal justice professor at
Xavier University, praised attempts in the U.S. to patrol social media.
The Wall Street Journal noted China's themes of
Internet censorship became more relevant at the World Internet Conference due to the outgrowth of fake news. The issue of fake news in the 2016 United States election gave the Chinese Government a reason to further criticize Western democracy and press freedom. The Chinese government accused Western media organisations of bias, in a move apparently inspired by Trump. In March 2017, the ''
People's Daily'', a newspaper run by the ruling
Chinese Communist Party, denounced news coverage of the torture of Chinese lawyer and human rights advocate Xie Yang, claiming it to be fake news. The Chinese government also claimed that there were people who posed as journalists who spread negative information on social media in order to extort payment from their victims to stop doing so. David Bandurski of University of Hong Kong's China Media Project said that this issue continued to worsen.
Hong Kong During the
2019–20 Hong Kong protests, the Chinese government has been accused for using fake news to spread misinformation regarding the protests. It includes describing protests as "riots", and "radicals" seeking independence for the city. Due to the
online censorship in China, citizens inside mainland China could not read news reports from some media outlets. It was also found by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that misinformation was spread with fake accounts and advertisements by state-backed media. Large amount of accounts were suspended.
Dot Dot News, a pro-Beijing online media located in Hong Kong, has been banned by Facebook for distributing fake news and hate speech.
India Fake news in India has led to violent incidents between
castes and religions, interfering with public policies. It often spreads through the
smartphone instant messenger WhatsApp, which had 200 million
monthly active users in the country .
Indonesia Indonesia is reported to have the fourth-highest number of Facebook users in the world. Indonesia has seen an increase in the amount of fake news and hoaxes on social media, particularly around elections in 2014 and 2019. This has been accompanied by increased polarization within the country. During the
2014 presidential election, the eventual winning candidate
Joko Widodo became a target of a smear campaign by
Prabowo Subianto's supporters that falsely claimed he was the child of
Indonesian Communist Party members, of
Chinese descent, and a
Christian. After Widodo won, Subianto challenged the results, making claims of widespread fraud that were not upheld. Observers found that the election was carried out fairly. According to Mafindo, which tracks fake news in Indonesia, political disinformation increased by 61% between December 2018 and January 2019, leading up to the
2019 presidential election. Both political candidates and electoral institutions were targeted. Both sides formed dedicated anti-hoax groups to counterattacks on social media. The Indonesian government held weekly fake news briefings. Once again, the losing candidate refused to accept the result and claimed that there had been fraud, without presenting any supporting evidence. Protests, rioting, and deaths of protestors were reported. Fake news in Indonesia frequently tends to be related to alleged
Chinese imperialism (including
Sinicization),
Christianization, and
communization. Inflaming ethnic and political tensions is potentially deadly in Indonesia, with its recent incidences of domestic terrorism, and its long and bloody history of
anti-communist,
anti-Christian and
anti-Chinese pogroms cultivated by
Suharto's
U.S.-backed right-wing dictatorship. The Indonesian government, watchdog groups, and even religious organizations have taken steps to prevent the spreading of disinformation, through steps such as blocking certain websites and creating fact-check apps. The largest Islamic mass organization in Indonesia,
Nahdlatul Ulama, has created an anti-fake news campaign called #TurnBackHoax, while other Islamic groups have defined such propagation as tantamount to sin. Of that sum of money, $731 million was deposited into bank accounts controlled by Razak. In the
2018 Malaysian general election, Najib Razak lost his seat as prime minister to
Mahatir Mohammad, who vowed to abolish the fake news law in his campaign, as the law was used to target him. After winning the election, the newly elected prime minister Mohammad has said, "Even though we support freedom of press and freedom of speech, there are limits." The vagueness of this law means that satirists, opinion writers, and journalists who make errors could face persecution. The law also makes it illegal to share fake news stories. In one instance, a Danish man and Malaysian citizen were arrested for posting false news stories online and were sentenced to serve a month in jail.
Myanmar (Burma) In 2015,
BBC News reported on fake stories, using unrelated photographs and fraudulent captions, shared online in support of the
Rohingya. Fake news negatively affected individuals in
Myanmar, leading to a rise in
violence against Muslims in the country. Online participation surged from one percent to 20 percent of Myanmar's total populace from 2014 to 2016. Fake stories from Facebook were reprinted in paper periodicals called
Facebook and
The Internet. False reporting related to practitioners of Islam in the country was directly correlated with increased attacks on
Muslims in Myanmar.
BuzzFeed journalist Sheera Frenkel reported fake news fictitiously stated believers in Islam acted out in violence at Buddhist locations. She documented a direct relationship between the fake news and violence against Muslim people. Frenkel noted countries that were relatively newer to Internet exposure were more vulnerable to the problems of fake news and fraud.
Pakistan Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the
Minister of Defence of
Pakistan, threatened on
Twitter to attack
Israel with nuclear weapons after a false story claiming that
Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli
Ministry of Defense, said "If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack."
Philippines Fake news sites have become rampant for Philippine audiences, especially being shared on social media. Politicians have started filing laws to combat fake news and three Senate hearings have been held on the topic. The
Catholic Church in the Philippines has also released a missive speaking out against it.
Vera Files research at the end of 2017 and 2018 show that the most shared fake news in the Philippines appeared to benefit two people the most: President
Rodrigo Duterte (as well as his allies) and politician
Bongbong Marcos, with the most viral news driven by shares on networks of Facebook pages. Most Philippine-audience Facebook pages and groups spreading online disinformation also bear
Duterte,
Marcos or
News in their names and are pro-Duterte. Online disinformation in the Philippines is overwhelmingly political as well, with most attacking groups or individuals critical of the Duterte administration. Many Philippine-audience fake news websites also appear to be controlled by the same operators as they share common
Google AdSense and
Google Analytics IDs. Fake news is so established and severe in the Philippines that Facebook's Global Politics and Government Outreach Director
Katie Harbath also calls it "patient zero" in the global misinformation epidemic, having happened before
Brexit, the
Trump nomination and the
2016 US Elections.
Singapore Singapore criminalizes the propagation of fake news. Under existing law, "Any person who transmits or causes to be transmitted a message which he knows to be false or fabricated shall be guilty of an offense". On March 18, 2015, a doctored screenshot of the Prime Minister's Office website claiming the demise of
Lee Kuan Yew went viral, and several international news agencies such as
CNN and
China Central Television initially reported it as news, until corrected by the Prime Minister's Office. The image was created by a student to demonstrate to his classmates how fake news could be easily created and propagated. In 2017, Singaporean news website
Mothership was criticized by the
Ministry of Education (MOE) for propagating remarks falsely attributed to a MOE official. In addition, Minister of Law
K. Shanmugam also singled out online news website
The States Times Review as an example of a source of fake news, as it once claimed a near-zero turnout at the state funeral of President
S. R. Nathan. Following these incidents, Shanmugam stated that the existing legalization is limited and ineffective and indicated that the government intends to introduce legislation to combat fake news in 2018. In 2017, the Ministry of Communications and Information set up
Factually, a website intended to debunk false rumors regarding issues of public interest such as the environment, housing and transport, while in 2018, the
Parliament of Singapore formed a
Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods to consider new legislation to tackle fake news. On recommendations from the select committee, the Singapore government introduced the
Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill (POFMA) in April 2019. Critics had pointed out that this bill could introduce government self-censorship and increase government control over social media. Activist platform
The Online Citizen regarded legislation against fake news as an attempt by the government to curb the free flow of information so that only information approved by the government is disseminated to the public. In an online essay, activist and historian
Thum Ping Tjin denied that fake news was a problem in Singapore, and accused the
People's Action Party government as the only major source of fake news, claiming that detentions made without trial during
Operation Coldstore and
Operation Spectrum were based on fake news for party political gain. Facebook and Google had opposed the introduction of the law to combat fake news, claiming that existing legislation was adequate to address the problem and that an effective way of combating misinformation is through educating citizens on how to distinguish reliable from unreliable information. The bill was passed June 3, 2019. Commencing on October 2, 2019, the law is designed specifically to allow authorities to respond to fake news or false information through a graduated process of enforcing links to fact-checking statements, censorship of website or assets on social media platforms, and criminal charges. There have been 75 recorded instances of POFMA's usage since the law's introduction, with the latest occurring on May 7, 2021.
South Korea South Korean journalists and media experts lament political hostility between South and North Korea which distorts
media coverage of North Korea and North Korea has attributed erroneous reporting to South Korea and United States with being critical to media organization
Chosun Ilbo while American journalist
Barbara Demick had also made similar criticisms on media coverage of North.
Taiwan Taiwan's leaders, including President
Tsai Ing-wen and Premier
William Lai, accused
China's troll army of spreading "fake news" via social media to support candidates more sympathetic to Beijing ahead of the
2018 Taiwanese local elections. In a report in December 2015 by
The China Post, a fake video shared online showed people a light show purportedly made at the
Shihmen Reservoir. The Northern Region Water Resources Office confirmed there was no light show at the reservoir and the event had been fabricated. The fraud led to an increase in tourist visits to the actual attraction. According to the news updated paper from the Time World in regards the global threat to free speech, the Taiwanese government has reformed its policy on education and it will include "media literacy" as one part of school curriculum for the students. It will be included to develop the
critical-thinking skills needed while using social media. Further, the work of media literacy will also include the skills needed to analyze propaganda and sources, so students can clarify what is fake news.
Americas Brazil Brazil faced increasing influence from fake news after the
2014 re-election of President
Dilma Rousseff and
Rousseff's subsequent impeachment in August 2016. BBC Brazil reported in April 2016 that in the week surrounding one of the impeachment votes, three out of the five most-shared articles on Facebook in Brazil were fake. In 2015, reporter Tai Nalon resigned from her position at Brazilian newspaper
Folha de S Paulo in order to start the first fact-checking website in Brazil, called (). Nalon told
The Guardian there was a great deal of fake news, and hesitated to compare the problem to that experienced in the U.S. Brazil also has a problem with fake news, and according to a survey, a greater number of people that believe fake news influenced the outcome of their elections (69%) than in the United States (47%). The
BBC reported that Bolsonaro's campaign declared media associating his campaign to the "extreme right" were themselves fake news. In 2020,
Brazil's Supreme Court began an investigation into a purported disinformation campaign by Bolsonaro supporters. The Brazilian President claimed the investigation was "unconstitutional", and any restriction of fake news was an act of censorship. After an order by the Brazilian Supreme Court, Facebook had removed "dozens" of fake accounts that were directly linked to Bolsonaro's offices and his sons, and which were directed against politicians and media that opposed the President. A video of Bolsonaro falsely claiming that the anti-malarial drug
hydroxychloroquine has been working everywhere against the coronavirus was also taken down by Facebook and Twitter. In regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, he has accused his political opponents of exaggerating the severity of the virus. He gave a speech in 2021 in which he claimed that the virus was not as bad as the media made it out to be, and it was "fantasy" created by the media. In the wake of the uptick in Amazon fires of 2019, it became clear that many of the forest fire photos that went viral were fake news. Emmanuel Macron, president of France, tweeted a picture taken by a photographer who died in 2003, for example.
Canada Fake news online was brought to the attention of Canadian politicians in November 2016, as they debated helping assist local newspapers. Member of
Parliament for
Vancouver Centre Hedy Fry specifically discussed fake news as an example of ways in which publishers on the Internet are less accountable than print media. Discussion in parliament contrasted the increase of fake news online with the downsizing of Canadian newspapers and the impact on democracy in Canada. Representatives from Facebook Canada attended the meeting and told members of Parliament they felt it was their duty to assist individuals in gathering data online. In January 2017, the
Conservative leadership campaign of
Kellie Leitch admitted to spreading fake news, including false claims that
Justin Trudeau was financing
Hamas. The campaign manager claimed he spread the news in order to provoke negative reactions so that he could determine those who "aren't real Conservatives".
Colombia In the fall of 2016, WhatsApp spread fake news that impacted votes critical to Colombian history. One of the lies spreading rapidly through WhatsApp was that Colombian citizens would receive less pension so former guerrilla fighters would get money. Uribe, former president of Colombia and of the democratic party, led the "no" campaign. Santos, president in 2016, took liberal approaches during his presidency. Santos won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his efforts towards a peace accord with rebel forces. In addition, Uribe naturally had opposing views to those of Santos. The three most frequently used social media platforms were Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp. Prior to 2012, the country's major television networks were central to
political communication in Mexico. They were also closely connected to the long-dominant
PRI political party. Televiso has been criticized by journalists and academics for misrepresentation and manipulation of information, and attacks on opponents. Televiso shaped the campaign of
Enrique Peña Nieto Mexican politicians used digital strategies and algorithms to boost their apparent popularity and undermine or overwhelm opposing messages. A network of trolls was formed as early as 2009, to be activated as needed in support of Peña Nieto. Estimates of the number of people involved, and how many were paid, vary widely from 20,000 to 100,000 people. Bots were also used to amplify messages and create "false universes of followers". Government activities following Peña Nieto's election included the amplification of support for controversial government initiatives. As of 2018, 76–80% of people surveyed in Mexico worried about false information or fake news being used as a weapon, the highest rate of any country in the world. During the
2018 election, bot battles between candidates drowned out conversations by posting attacks, rumors, unsubstantiated claims, and
deepfaked videos. Forty percent of the election-related tweets on Twitter mentioned
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). None of his opponents reached twenty percent of the tweets. with a higher death toll than active war zones. During the pandemic, use of social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook increased. In Mexico, the user base of the video app TikTok tripled from 2019 to 2021, reaching 17 million viewers.
United States Middle East and Africa Armenia According to a report by
openDemocracy in 2020, the Armenian website Medmedia.am was spreading disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, calling
COVID-19 a "fake pandemic" and warning Armenians to refuse future vaccine programmes. The website is led by Gevorg Grigoryan, a doctor who has been critical of the Armenian government's health ministry and its vaccine programmes, and has a history of anti-LGBT statements, including remarks posted on Facebook in which he called for gay people to be burned.
The Guardian said the site was launched with the unwitting help of a US State Department grant intended to promote democracy.
Israel and Palestinian territories In 1996, people were killed in the
Western Wall Tunnel riots in reaction to fake news accounts. In April 2018, Palestinian-Israeli football team
Bnei Sakhnin threatened to sue Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu for libel after he claimed fans booed during a minute of silence for Israeli flash-flood victims. In a social media post, Netanyahu blasted various Israeli news critical of him, as fake news including
Channel 2,
Channel 10,
Haaretz and
Ynet the same day U.S. President Trump decried "fake news". The Palestinian Islamist political organization
Hamas published a political program in 2017 intended to ease its position on Israel. Among other things, this charter accepted the borders of the Palestinian state circa the
Six-Day War of 1967. Although this document is an advancement from their previous 1988 charter, which called for the destruction of the State of Israel, it still does not recognize Israel as a legitimate independent nation. He specifically disagreed with the notion that Hamas had accepted the state of Israel within their new charter, and called this "a complete distortion of the truth". Instead he said, "The new Hamas document says Israel has no right to exist."
Haaretz fact-checked the video, stating, "Netanyahu, following in the footsteps of Trump, is deliberately twisting the definition of 'fake news' to serve his own needs." In a later speech, addressed to his supporters, Netanyahu responded to allegations against him: "The fake news industry is at its peak... Look, for example, how they cover with unlimited enthusiasm, every week, the left-wing demonstration. The same demonstrations whose goal is to apply improper pressure on law enforcement authorities so they will file an indictment at any price."
The Washington Post likened his use of the term
fake news for describing left-wing media to Donald Trump's similar statements during the
2016 United States election cycle. In studies conducted by Yifat Media Check Ltd. and Hamashrokit (, a fact-checking organization), they found that over 70% of statements made by Israeli political leaders were not accurate. Some of the fake news Israel has been the victim of includes
Israel-related animal conspiracy theories, which claim Israel is using various animals to spy on or attack others with.
Saudi Arabia According to the
Global News,
Saudi Arabia's state-owned television spread fake news about
Canada. In August 2018, Canada's
Global News reported that state-owned television
Al Arabiya, "has suggested that Canada is the worst country in the world for women, that it has the highest suicide rate and that it treats its Indigenous people the way Myanmar treats the Rohingya—a Muslim minority massacred and driven out of Myanmar en masse last year." In October 2018,
Twitter has suspended a number of
bot accounts that appeared to be spreading pro-Saudi rhetoric about the disappearance of Saudi opposition journalist
Jamal Khashoggi. According to
Newsweek, Saudi Arabia's Office of Public Prosecution tweeted that "producing rumors or fake news [that Saudi Arabia's government was involved in the disappearance of Khashoggi] that would affect the public order or public security or sending or resending it via social media or any technical means" is punishable "by five years and a fine of 3million
riyals".
Iranian-backed Twitter accounts have spread sensational fake news and rumours about Saudi Arabia. On August 1, 2019, Facebook identified hundreds of accounts that were running a covert network on behalf of government of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to spread fake news and attack regional rivals. The social media giant removed more than 350 accounts, pages and groups with nearly 1.4 million followers. Along with Facebook, these accounts were involved in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" on
Instagram as well. According to a Facebook blog post, the network was running two different political agendas, one on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the other for the
United Arab Emirates and
Egypt.
Syria In February 2017,
Amnesty International reported that up to 13,000 people had been hanged in a Syrian prison as part of an "extermination" campaign. Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad questioned the credibility of Amnesty International and called the report "fake news" fabricated to undermine the government. "You can forge anything these days—we are living in a fake news era." Russia ran a disinformation campaign during the
Syrian Civil War to discredit the humanitarian rescue organisation
White Helmets, and to discredit reports and images of children and other civilian bombing victims. This was done to weaken criticism of Russia's involvement in the war. The United Nations and international chemical inspectors found Bashar al-Assad responsible for use of chemical weapons, which was called "fake news" by Russia. Russia promoted various contradictory claims that no chemicals were present, or attributing the chemical attacks to other countries or groups.
United Arab Emirates The
United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been funding
non-profit organizations,
think tanks and
contributors of
journalism, including
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the
Middle East Forum (MEF), which further paid journalists spreading fake information to defame countries like
Qatar. In 2020, a researcher at FDD, Benjamin Weinthal, and fellow at MEF,
Jonathan Spyer, contributed an article on
Fox News to promote a negative image of Qatar, in an attempt to stain its
diplomatic relations with the United States.
Egypt According to
The Daily Telegraph, an Egyptian official suggested in 2010 that the Israeli spy agency
Mossad could have been behind a fatal shark attack in
Sharm el-Sheikh. It was estimated by the Egyptian Parliament's Communication and Information Technology Committee that in 2017, 53,000 false rumors had been spread primarily through social media in 60 days.
South Africa A wide range of South African media sources have reported fake news as a growing problem and tool to both increase distrust in the media, discredit political opponents, and divert attention from corruption. Media outlets owned by the
Gupta family have been noted by other South African media organisations such as
The Huffington Post (South Africa),
Sunday Times, Radio 702, and
City Press for targeting them. Individuals targeted include Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan who was seen as blocking Gupta attempts at
state capture with accusations levelled against Gordhan of promoting state capture for "
white monopoly capital". The
African National Congress (ANC) was taken to court by Sihle Bolani for unpaid work she did during the election on the ANC's behalf. In court papers Bolani stated that the ANC used her to launch and run a covert R50 million fake news and
disinformation campaign during the
2016 municipal elections with the intention of discrediting opposition parties.
Oceania Australia The Australian Parliament initiated investigation into "fake news" regarding issues surrounding fake news that occurred during the 2016 United States election. The inquiry looked at several major areas in Australia to find audiences most vulnerable to fake news, by considering the impact on traditional journalism, and by evaluating the liability of online advertisers and by regulating the spreading the hoaxes. This act of parliament is meant to combat the threat of social media spreading fake news. The Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation commenced on 22 February 2021, around 12 months after the Australian Government asked digital platforms to develop a voluntary code to address disinformation and misinformation and assist users of their services to more easily identify the reliability, trustworthiness and source of news content. The request is part of a broader Australian Government strategy to reform the technology and information dissemination landscape. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) oversaw the development of the code. In its 2021 report to government on the code, ACMA recommended that the government introduce legislation to grant ACMA powers to enforce the code, to request transparency reports and other information from digital platforms about their misinformation measures and to conduct investigations. Responding to the report, the
Coalition government indicated in March 2022 that it would proceed with legislation. Following the
2022 federal election, the new
Labor government continued the legislative program and in June 2023 a draft bill was released for public consultation. Despite their earlier support for regulation, the Liberal–National coalition, now in opposition, voiced concerns that granting ACMA powers to regulate misinformation would endanger freedom of speech. There was also significant opposition to the bill from right-leaning media outlets, while experts voiced concerns about the design of the bill. The consultation on the legislation received 2418 public submissions and over 20,000 comments, many opposing the bill. A well-known case of fabricated news in
Australia happened in 2009 when a report,
Deception detection across Australian populations, by a "Levitt Institute" was widely cited on news websites across the country, claiming that
Sydney was the most naive city, despite the fact that the report itself contained a clue: amidst the mathematical gibberish, there was a statement: "These results were completely made up to be fictitious material through a process of modified truth and credibility nodes." == Misuse of term ==