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Facts Matter
Disinformation today poses a major challenge for democracies worldwide, fueling distrust in public institutions and helping to spread false narratives around key issues including elections, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
In a bid to mitigate the threat of disinformation, MedDMO brings together a group of experienced fact-checkers focusing on issues that affect the region.
The aim is to help the public develop critical thinking in order to distinguish real from false information.
The fact-checkers:
AFP, a global leader in digital verification, is a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) code of principles. These include a commitment to: non-partisanship and fairness, transparency of sources, transparency of funding and organisation, transparency of methodology and an open and honest corrections policy.
AFP’s work is carried out by fact-checking journalists and editors who work closely with the agency’s entire international network and follow the same editorial standards and key guiding principles.
As well as traditional journalism skills, AFP uses a number of simple tools to verify online information, some common sense and a lot of caution. Starting out with a specific question, AFP seeks to investigate and report dubious stories and claims that may or may not end up on our newswires. It seeks non-partisan, publicly available information in its investigations, and links to it online. AFP’s journalists monitor online content in local languages, from Amharic to Hindi, German or Dutch. They take into account local cultures, languages and politics and work with AFP’s bureaus worldwide to investigate and disprove false information, focusing on items that can be harmful, impactful and manipulative.
Ellinika Hoaxes is the first fact-checking organization that received accreditation from the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in Greece and has years of experience in the field of fact-checking covering a wide array of topics with a prominent example being pseudoscientific misinformation. In the context of our work, we have collaborated with educational institutions and global associations with the goal of promoting digital literacy and combating misinformation and disinformation online.
The Fact Check Cyprus Center was integrated into the Social Computing Research Center of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) on November 20, 2023, and it represents the culmination of a collaboration among individuals from Cyprus and Greece who are engaged in combating disinformation. CUT is a public academic institution in Cyprus and operates as a non-profit organization, a status that also applies to Fact-Check Cyprus. The Center’s objective is twofold: on the one hand, to debunk fake news, and on the other, to educate the public on combating disinformation and on media literacy. The selection of topics is determined exclusively by the editorial team of Fact-Check Cyprus.
The methodology of Fact Check Cyprus places particular emphasis on topics submitted by readers, as well as on claims selected by the editorial team based on public interest and significance. The selection of topics, research, writing, and the final result belong exclusively to the editorial team, while other collaborators maintain only an advisory role regarding technical or methodological issues. As a Center integrated within a Public University, it operates with full editorial independence and academic freedom, without political commitments, without accepting donations from politicians or parties, and with a clear separation between the administrative structure and decisions regarding fact-checking. For the sake of impartiality and quality, every fact-check passes through at least one additional editor, or more when the case is more complex. The methodology is accompanied by a corrections policy, with substantive corrections being prominently noted within the article itself and publicly documented.
At the same time, Fact Check Cyprus discloses information regarding its structure, team, funding sources, and the mechanisms that protect its independence. As of the beginning of 2026, Fact Check Cyprus is the only fact-checker from Cyprus that is an accredited member of the EFCSN and the IFCN in Cyprus.
Times of Malta, Malta’s leading media organisation, provides fact-checked articles about Malta and Maltese subjects of interest. Founded in 1935, Times of Malta is the oldest daily newspaper in Malta still in circulation and its website is the country’s most visited news site. Times of Malta prides itself on being independent. It is not affiliated to any external organisation or political party.
Journalists are required to follow a code of ethics that instructs them to seek the truth at all times, identify sources where possible, act independently and disclose conflicts of interest, and remain free of political associations or ties that may compromise their integrity.
Times of Malta’s fact-checking service is the first of its kind in Malta. Fact-checking articles are published on a dedicated section on the Times of Malta website.