February 20, 2026 A new video showing a Television Malta (TVM) news feature about a lottery is manipulated by AI to promote what appears to be a sham lottery. The minute-long video shows Angelica Farrugia, a newscaster at the state broadcaster’s TV station TVM, presenting the evening news, as she would do on a typical […]
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January 26, 2026 As Malta braced for Storm Harry’s gale force winds on Monday January 19, Maltese social media was hit with a wave of storm-related misinformation, with footage of years-old storms resurfacing and shared as new. In one case, footage of a Gozo Channel ferry attempting to carry passengers between the islands of Malta
Fact-check Malta: Viral video of Gozo ferry dates back to 2010 Read More »
January 23, 2026 A scam operation posing as a dog breeding and adoption agency is cheating would-be dog owners of their hard-earned cash, a veterinary clinic and grooming salon close to the operation’s listed address warn. Last week, a social media post by Abaigeal Ragogna, an employee at a dog grooming salon in the town
Fact-check Malta: People showing up in Naxxar to collect dogs that never existed Read More »
January 23, 2026 Party financing in Malta came under the spotlight in the run-up to Christmas, as opposition party PN belatedly submitted the party’s financial reports for 2021 to 2024 on December 15, leading to conflicting claims from acolytes of both of the country’s main political parties over the other’s sources of wealth and donors.
Fact-check Malta: How much are political parties declaring in donations? Read More »
November 7, 2025 A series of social media posts posted by opposition party PN in the immediate aftermath of the annual budget held on Monday October 27 sparked a debate over pay raises for Malta’s Cabinet ministers. The posts compared the weekly COLA increase (cost-of-living adjustment, a sum handed out to compensate for inflation) given
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November 4, 2025 A series of AI generated videos posted in recent days showing unusual sightings in Malta’s streets have duped many people into believing they are real. The videos range from plausible events, such as photorealistic depictions of near-traffic accidents, to seemingly implausible, such as the sight of exotic animals freely roaming Malta’s streets.
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October 21, 2025 Claim: The family of a tragic car crash are requesting donations through a Facebook page. Verdict: The Facebook page was set up by scammers, hoping to defraud people of their funds. Online scammers are soliciting donations in the name of Sandra and Kevin Bonnici, one of the two couples who died tragically in
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October 13, 2025 Claim: A proposed reform to planning laws only allows illegal developments to be regularised if a small part of the development is illegal Verdict: The proposed laws allow people to apply to have an entire illegal development regularised, not just a small part of it. A fiery debate between Michael Stivala,
May 27, 2025 The news that Labour MEP Daniel Attard is embroiled in a bribery investigation came as a bolt from the blue, with Attard issuing a statement on Monday 19 May, describing his attendance at a football match in the presence of a Huawei lobbyist. The matter raised several questions over Attard’s future and the extent
Fact-check Malta: Is MEP Daniel Attard facing charges of bribery? Read More »
May 27, 2025 The local council of the sleepy town of Għargħur has hit the front pages in recent weeks, after councillors ousted the mayor, flipping the council’s previous PN majority to a PL-led one. The turmoil led to protests and earnest appeals for new elections, with several people across social media painting conflicting pictures
Fact-check Malta: What happened at the Għargħur local council? Read More »
May 12, 2025 On Friday 2 May, Malta woke up to the alarming news that the Conscience, a ship operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, had been attacked some 26km off its eastern coast. The ship was reportedly en route to Gaza, carrying humanitarian aid when it was attacked. The news quickly drew international attention
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April 14, 2025 Supporters of Malta’s Labour Party are sharing photorealistic AI-generated images in partisan Facebook groups that attempt to portray opposition leader Bernard Grech at a civil society protest in the capital city of Valletta. A protest was held by a number of local NGOs on 2nd April 2025 outside the parliament building in
March 10, 2025 AI-generated videos are filling social media feeds, and they are looking increasingly real, even if logic suggests otherwise. Take this video, for example, which is currently doing the rounds on Instagram. It appears to show a team of fishermen out at sea hauling a mammoth oyster onto their boat. They proceed to
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March 10, 2025 The role of the court expert has come under recent scrutiny, following British forensic accountant Jeremy Harbinson’s refusal to travel to Malta to testify in a prominent criminal case. Harbinson is one of the authors of a 1,200 page report into the privatisation of Karin Grech, St Luke’s and Gozo general hospitals
Fact-check Malta: Can a court expert refuse to testify? Read More »
March 6, 2025 Valentine’s Day is usually a celebration of love. But this year, the White House put a dark spin on the popular ‘roses are red, violets are blue’ refrain to promote deportations, unwittingly duping several people into thinking its social media Valentine’s Day post was false. Around 14th February, social media users around
February 21, 2025 Earlier this year we highlighted a barrage of posts by fake pages and profiles targeting people interested in a popular artisan Christmas market in Malta. Scammers really never do take a holiday, and this particular tactic seems to be a growing trend. Another Facebook Event created by Malta Artisan Markets, this time
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February 4, 2025 The news of two fatal traffic accidents right at the beginning of the new year thrust long-standing concerns over road safety in Malta back into the spotlight. On Monday 6 January, 25-year-old Alejandro Brincat was killed after he lost control of his car in the town of Attard. On the same day, a
Fact-check Malta: Did a 2014 road safety strategy hit its targets? Read More »
January 3, 2025 Scams don’t take a holiday. In fact, it’s safe to expect more of them – on social media, SMS, phone calls or email – around festivities. We spotted one (or perhaps several) on Facebook just before Christmas. It wasn’t a post doing the rounds on a closed group. Instead, it was a
Fact-check Malta: Unwrapping disinformation – beware scams targeting events Read More »
December 13, 2024 Reports of HSBC’s looming departure from Malta in September sparked a torrent of speculation over what this meant for the bank’s clients, with some questioning what would happen to their savings and investments once the bank changed hands. The news was seemingly confirmed in recent weeks, with HSBC Malta telling its shareholders
Fact-check Malta: What happens when a bank changes hands? Read More »
November 20, 2024 A recently-resurfaced video clip shows a former Labour Party minister perpetuating misinformation about political murders in Malta. Joe Debono Grech, once a Labour minister in the 1980s and 1990s, was a guest on ‘Madwar Mejda’ (‘Around the Table’), a television programme on ONE, the station owned by Malta’s ruling Labour Party. During
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November 13, 2024 A false story about a lost child, which was called out as a scam by an American TV station earlier this year, has made it to Malta. The post, which carries two identical photos of a young boy, claims the three-year-old was found in Malta and has been taken to a Police
Fact-check Malta: Scam Facebook post about lost three-year-old boy makes it to Malta Read More »
November 7, 2024 A seemingly innocuous measure buried in the budget held on 28 October raised an unexpected furore when Times of Malta flagged that the required years of social security contributions to qualify for a full pension will rise from 41 years to 42 for people born after 1976. The measure quickly became the
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October 22, 2024 Poor and tasteless construction is rampant in Malta. So it is no surprise that many Maltese believed that a particular image published on Facebook showed a local building. A reverse image search on Google quickly shows that the building is not in Malta. Search results show that it first went viral in
Fact-check Malta: The country has bad buildings, but this isn’t one of them Read More »
October 16, 2024 If you run a Facebook page, you have most likely received a message stating that unless you take the necessary action your page will be deleted. These messages are fake. Sometimes, this is obvious – the page/profile by which the message was sent might have an obscure name, or its photo might
Fact-check Malta: That message saying your Facebook page will be deleted is fake Read More »
October 16, 2024 The government claims it is on track to fulfil one of its key electoral promises to rebuild all of Malta’s roads, with Transport Minister Chris Bonett recently telling parliament that the project is “95% complete”. But despite this, the government has turned down repeated requests to provide Times of Malta with a list
Fact-check Malta: Has the government rebuilt 1,315 roads? Read More »
September 6, 2024 With the tourist season in full swing, the debate over the type of tourists arriving in Malta, and their impact on Malta’s economy, has once again hit the front pages. Tony Zahra, the president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, one of Malta’s main tourism lobby groups, was the first to
Fact-check Malta: Are tourists in Malta spending more than they used to? Read More »
August 30, 2024 Have you recently received an “urgent” WhatsApp message from your friend asking you to send them a code? That ‘friend’ is no friend at all but a scammer trying to worm their way into kicking you out of your WhatsApp account. Police have urged the public to take more care as reports of WhatsApp
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August 16, 2024 Just after Nicolette Ghirxi was found fatally stabbed in her Swatar home in the early hours of Monday 12 August, police were locked in a dangerous showdown with her ex-partner, Edward Johnston, on the pitch-dark St Julians’ shoreline. Johnston is believed to have murdered Ghirxi earlier in the night. The negotiation ended in
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August 2, 2024 After a week-long to-and-fro with Cabinet, Edward Scicluna agreed to temporarily step aside from his role at the helm of Malta’s Central Bank on Tuesday evening. Scicluna has served as the Central Bank’s governor since 2021, but has faced calls to step down from the role ever since he was criminally charged
Fact-check Malta: How much will Edward Scicluna earn until the end of his term? Read More »
August 1, 2024 Whether or not you watched the Paris Olympics opening ceremony last week, you undoubtedly know about the controversy made out of one particular moment. People the world over have described the act as a ‘mockery’ of Christianity. But there is more to the picture than meets the eye. The segment in question
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July 31, 2024 As the court cases in connection to the fraudulent privatisation of three of Malta’s state hospitals continue, some locals believe another hospital-related line has been crossed. This time, though, the issue is the supposed removal of crucifixes from wards. On Sunday 28 July, several Facebook users shared posts claiming that Mater Dei
Fact-check Malta: No, Mater Dei is not removing crucifixes from its walls Read More »
July 31, 2024 With the dust settling on this year’s local council elections, held on 8th June, many raised renewed questions over the impact that gender quotas are having on Maltese politics. A controversial gender quota mechanism which came into force in the 2022 general elections brought about the election of 12 women to Malta’s parliament. The
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July 30, 2024 It’s a trick as old as time, one common among Shakepeare’s Iagos, modern day demagogues, and cyber scammers: deception is most effective when it plays upon emotion. Sympathy scams are a perfect example. These typically take the form of hoax social media posts purporting to be about something that tends to play
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July 30, 2024 New data published on Tuesday 23 July puts paid to ongoing speculation about how much workers in Malta earn on average. The debate over salaries is a regular feature of public discourse in Malta, with social media users frequently resorting to anecdotal or downright fabricated figures to drive their point home. But
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July 10, 2024 Social media users have recently shared a photo on social media that they claim shows ‘Roman tidal baths’ in Malta that disprove climate change. One X user sharing the photo wrote ‘Roman tidal baths on Malta – still at sea level after thousands of years. But – climate change is about to
Fact check Malta: Do these ‘Roman-era’ baths disprove climate change? Read More »
July 10, 2024 Social media sees an endless stream of trends. A potential contender for the summer’s hottest: sunscreen is actually bad for you. At least, so say a number of TikTok users. News sites in the United States have been reporting that misinformation about sunscreen is spreading profusely on the bite-size video platform and
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July 8, 2024 On Saturday 6 July, an image showing what appeared to be a digger demolishing rainbow-coloured steps in a seemingly suburban street while a man stood watching a few metres away, was widely shared on Facebook. Amongst those who shared it was a self-proclaimed ‘personal blog’ page called ‘This is Malta’, which shared
Fact check Malta: Watch your step – image of rainbow steps being shared out of context Read More »
July 8, 2024 Shocking new revelations into a Steward-funded campaign orchestrated to smear former Health Minister Chris Fearne led inaccurate claims over whether this absolved Fearne of his ongoing legal troubles linked to a concession awarding three of Malta’s public hospitals to a private consortium. The deal was later taken over by US healthcare giant
Fact-check Malta: Do smear campaign reports clear Chris Fearne? Read More »
July 1, 2024 What do Malta’s former prime minister, a podcaster and a journalist have in common? They and others are the subject of a new scam circulating locally on social media. Cyber scams are becoming more sophisticated, though this latest one is not particularly ingenious. Consisting of posts identical in form and content, most
June 27, 2024 Several of Malta’s largest localities emerged from the local council elections held on 8 June with hung councils, after neither of Malta’s two main political parties obtained a majority of seats. In Birkirkara, one of Malta’s most populated towns, the Labour Party (PL) and Nationalist Party (PN) each won six seats, meaning
Fact-check Malta: Who gets to be mayor in Malta’s hung councils? Read More »
June 27, 2024 Rumours that a butcher on the island of Gozo was killing sick dogs and cats and selling them to customers as sausages spread like wildfire on Friday 21 June, causing panic and disgust in equal measure. They claimed that several people had fallen sick and were admitted to hospital over the weekend
June 20, 2024 Prior to the MEP elections held on June 8, 2024, the Maltese state broadcaster, TVM, aired an advert containing footage manipulated to support the agenda of a far-right MEP candidate. The advert was produced by far-right party Imperium Europa. It features the party’s founder and leader, Norman Lowell, urging people to “open
June 5, 2024 In the run-up to the European Parliament and local council elections held in Malta on 8 June, the leaders of the country’s two main political parties warned the public against voting for third-parties or independent candidates, saying that a vote for another party would be ‘wasted’. In truth, this is a familiar
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June 4, 2024 this year’s elections saw some 370,000 people eligible to cast their vote for their preferred candidate for the European Parliament and almost 460,000 people vote for their local council representatives. Several online posts in recent weeks have spread confusion over who is eligible to vote, with some questioning the impact that Malta’s
Fact-check Malta: Who can vote in Malta’s elections? Read More »
May 18, 2024 Like his counterpart Prime Minister Robert Abela, Opposition leader Bernard Grech also used Malta’s workers’ day celebration to launch the Nationalist Party’s electoral campaign during a rally held in the town of Mosta. Times of Malta sifted through some of the claims made by Grech during his speech. Claim: Prime Minister Robert Abela
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May 18, 2024 Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Robert Abela launched his party’s European Parliament election campaign with a fiery speech at a May Day rally. Times of Malta dug through several claims made by Abela during his speech to separate fact from fiction. Claim: Roberta Metsola called Lawrence Gonzi “my prime minister”. Without
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