This is the fourth in a series of weekly briefs produced by MedDMO in the run-up to Malta’s general election on 30th May 2026. The previous briefs can be found here, here and here.
In last week’s brief, we highlighted suspicious websites that emerged in the weeks just before Malta’s election was called. Since then, we have done some more digging, and it seems the story goes a lot deeper. We have therefore decided to dedicate this week’s brief to outlining the facts we know so far of what appears to be something worth investigating further.
- A number of dubious domains were registered in the weeks just before and after the election was called
All of these domains are connected to websites that have some relation to Malta or to the election. Some pose as news sites or fact-checking sites, and at least one of them is a browser-based game. All of them are heavily biased towards the governing Labour Party, as we discuss in another point.
The domains, with their respective registration dates (found thanks to domain search tools) are as follows:
goodmorningmalta.com – registered on 19th March 2026
pnmalta.com – registered on 9th April 2026
appostli.com – registered on 13th April 2026
factcheckmalta.com – registered on 22nd April 2026 (under construction)
alexgaffes.com – registered on 7th May 2026
To put these in a temporal context: It was on 27th April that the prime minister called the election for 30th May. The government’s campaign domain intmalta.com, which forms its slogan, was registered on 8th April 2026, at a time when the prime minister was refusing to confirm whether an election would take place this year instead of next, when his administration’s term would officially end. On 9th April, the prime minister insisted that the Labour Party’s week-long congress, which was announced the day before, 8th April – the day the domain was registered – “does not necessarily” signal an early election.
- The sites are decidedly biased towards the Labour Party
In some cases, this is clear at face value. The site alexgaffes.com is a browser-based game that tasks the player with “saving” Alex Borg, the Opposition leader, by keeping him away from “microphones, newspapers, tweets, and Facebook, as these can trigger one of Alex’s silly statements” (see screenshot). With other sites, the slant is slightly less obvious, though the articles quickly reveal emotionally-loaded content lauding the government’s “successes” and criticising the Opposition’s “weaknesses”.
The narratives seen across the sites are also very familiar. One such narrative targets the Nationalist Party’s financial calculations in its electoral manifesto, using the image of the Opposition leader puzzling over a calculator. This image has been used by the Labour Party on a billboard it made parodying the Nationalist Party’s own campaign branding, in AI slopaganda shared on Labour Party supporter groups, in content posted by the Facebook page associated with appostli.com, and in content posted by goodmorningmalta.com. During the electoral campaign, the calculator motif appears to have been a useful means of propagating the Labour Party’s message. The motif first emerged after Labour pointed to what they described as a series of miscalculations in the costs of electoral pledges put forward by the Nationalist Party. The finance minister himself, in a short video shot for his Facebook page, commented that if the Labour Party’s electoral campaign had a mascot, it would be a calculator.
1: an official Labour Party billboard (source: MaltaDaily) 2: AI slopaganda shared on a Labour Party supporter group. 3: Facebook post by Appostli. 4: Screenshot of article on the goodmorningmalta.com site. All four mock the Opposition leader’s financial calculations in the Nationalist Party’s electoral manifesto.
- Content suggests the use of AI – but there is a “human touch”
The syntax and writing style of the sites appostli.com and goodmorningmalta.com is very similar, and it looks and sounds like AI-generated text. But the content is too nuanced and well-versed in the local political context (as we described above) to have been created without a human hand. The site pnmalta.com, which is published in the Maltese language and calls itself “another fact-checking project”, appears to be man-made, given the nuanced Maltese writing.
There are also elements of coordination between the sites: appostli.com published an article about the browser game on alexgaffes.com the same day that the latter domain was registered, 9th May.
Furthermore, it is clear that the pages know how to target audiences. The Appostli Facebook page is very active on a Facebook group aimed at students in Malta.
And there is another reason why we believe there to be human hands involved, as we discuss in the next point.
- The Appostli Facebook page promotes Labour Party proposals – using the party’s own ads
Several reels on the Appostli Facebook page feature an actual person promoting the Labour Party’s election proposals. Through the comments, we were able to learn his name, and he appears to be a member of the Labour Party youth group Żgħażagħ Laburisti. We ran reverse searches and manually searched Labour Party-affiliated pages, but did not find these reels anywhere else. These reels were posted on the Appostli page between yesterday (Wednesday 27th) and today (Thursday 28th). At least one of them has been shared over 30 times, and all visible “shares” are to Labour Party supporter groups. Notably, the featured man himself also shares it. In this reel, he displays one of the Labour Party’s own adverts on his phone as he speaks.
- Apparent attempts to appear as genuine news sites while spreading disinformation
Firstly, the sites frequently seem to take content from actual local news sites, and republish it either as is or in an edited form. This has happened with articles from the Times of Malta. We have also noticed that some of the sites’ articles are backdated years. We know that they have been backdated because domain checker sites confirm that none of the five websites are older than a couple of months old.
This recycled content is interspersed with articles that seem to be of the sites’ own making, consisting of false claims and/or stringing together elements incoherently. One example is an article on appostli.com entitled “Leaked docs reveal foreign funding behind Daphne Foundation agenda” (see screenshot). The article is completely unrelated to its title. As for the title itself, it is evidently intended to mislead. The Daphne (Caruana Galizia) Foundation is a registered voluntary organisation, and its accounts are filed with the Office of the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations. It was set up by the family of the assassinated journalist to campaign for justice for her, for her stories, and for journalism as a collective.* It has been open about the fact that it has received funding for particular projects through legitimate schemes. The Appostli article’s title, however, insinuates dubious or illicit foreign interference.
Meanwhile, in our brief last week, we noted that the stated address of appostli.com and goodmorningmalta.com is the same: 142 Republic Street, Valletta, VLT1117. Google Maps incorrectly pinpoints this as lying towards the top of Republic Street, close to the National Museum of Archaeology. Our team went to look in person, and found that door numbers around no. 142 lie towards the bottom of the street, close to Fort St Elmo. However, we were unable to locate the precise door. Either way, this appears to be a fictitious address.
- Evidence of troll farming on social media
As we noted in our brief last week, we have also taken note of the behaviour of some of the sites’ corresponding social media pages. A post by the Appostli Facebook page can attract hundreds of reactions within minutes, and on inspection, the profiles engaging with the posts all appear to be fake, and do not even attempt to appear as genuine local profiles (see images). This is clear evidence of troll farming, a tactic of creating false engagement to manipulate public discourse.
Troll farming: this post by the Appostli Facebook page, portraying the prime minister and Opposition leader in combat, attracted 774 reactions within 16 minutes. All of the profiles appear to be fake. None of them even attempt to appear genuine.
Interestingly, some posts by the Appostli Facebook page attract a large number of real profiles; this appears to happen when the posts are shared to Labour Party supporter groups, such as “Moviment-Progressivi u Liberali.ai” (see image).
The Facebook pages’ transparency information is also interesting. The primary locations for people who manage the Appostli page are the Philippines, Turkey and the United States. For the Good Morning Malta page, they are Bangladesh, Turkey and Malta. We also took note of the pages’ history. Both were created a number of years ago under different names. They were changed to the names they bear now following the registration of the domains appostli.com and goodmorningmalta.com.
Facebook page transparency information for Appostli and Good Morning Malta.
- The payers behind the social media ads
According to the Meta Ads Library, the Appostli Facebook page has run seven ads to date, all of which were published after the election was called. These ads in particular show evidence of local knowledge; the claymation-style video in the ad of 1st May includes footage of a Labour Party mass meeting. The Meta Ad Library names two payers behind Appostli’s seven ads: “Economia” and “SUPPLY4INDUSTRY LTD”. These do not appear to be local.
We continue to look deeper into this story.
Footnotes
*In 2021, a public inquiry into the circumstances of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination held the State responsible for enabling a culture of impunity, stating that “following the 2013 election, individuals who were directly involved in the attack campaigns against the assassinated journalist took on public official positions, many of whom within the Office of the Prime Minister”.
