Fake fact-checking: when facts are fiction and falsehoods are facts

Around the world, journalists and researchers use fact-checking to separate truth from lies. Across the Atlantic, sites like FactCheck.org interview experts and scrutinise publicly available sources to debunk falsehoods wherever they appear. In Europe, organisations such as the EU DisinfoLab focus on exposing disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), particularly those originating from Russia.

The Kremlin’s twisted version of fact-checking

Not surprisingly, pro-Russian disinformation actors have tried to corrupt this tool for their own ends. True to form, Kremlin FIMI specialists have set up bogus fact-checking sites and organisations that insist up is down, aggression is defence, and reality is fantasy.

This practice continues a proud Kremlin tradition of purporting to honour journalistic principles while subverting them at every turn. For example, occasionally Russian state outlets and their representatives in France feign incredulous outrage that their journalist colleagues are supposedly ignorant of the Munich Charter, the declaration of rights and obligations that most journalistic unions in Europe endorse. For these critics, that fact that Russia itself makes a mockery of journalistic independence is strangely beside the point. The tactic – to borrow from the Gospel according to Matthew – is to howl at the mote of imperfection in another’s eye, but to ignore the beam of hypocrisy sticking out of your own.

From ‘War on Fakes’ to denying Bucha

Predictably, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 upped the ante. As the world became aware of the atrocities carried out by Russian forces in places like Bucha, the Kremlin worked furiously to deny and distract, efforts that we have extensively covered. One such effort was the initiative dubbed by Russian authorities as the ‘War on Fakes’. According to the US Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, the ‘War on Fakes’ Telegram channel was established just one day before Russia invaded on 23 February. The transparent goal – besides pushing false narratives about the war more generally – was to accuse Ukrainians of any war crimes that Russian troops committed, while also highlighting, exaggerating, or inventing alleged Ukrainian violations. As social media platforms banned pro-Russian accounts, the Kremlin turned to its global networks of diplomatic officials and entities to push its false narratives, as this report by VIGINUM, the French service responsible for monitoring and protecting against foreign digital interference, attests.

The ‘Global Fact-Checking Network’: Moscow’s latest invention

Lately, however, the main pro-Russian reality-smashing wrecking ball appears to be the ‘Global Fact-Checking Network’ (GFCN), a Kremlin-funded entity we have mentioned before. Its name bears a sneaky and probably intentional resemblance to that of the International Fact-Checking Network, a legitimate organisation run by the Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The Kremlin announced the GFCN’s creation at an apparent convention of Orwellian doublethink enthusiasts that took place in November 2024. The conference was called the ‘Dialogue on Fakes 2.0’. There, organisers released a ‘code of responsible fact-checking’.

On 8 April, none other than Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced the launch of GFCN’s website. Its managers are well-known disinformation spreaders, and some face European sanctions. For example, GFCN’s director is Vladimir Tabak, currently sanctioned for his role in promoting Russia’s foreign influence operations. Timofey Vasiliev, the head of GFCN’s Strategic Directions Department, was also behind the ‘War on Fakes’ organisation. Credible journalists and advocacy organisations have taken turns exposing GFCN and its lies. Here you can read reports by France 24, Reporters without Borders, and Deutsche Welle.

Empty content, empty audience

GFCN’s products stun the viewer with their combination of vacuity and a Kafkaesque determination to avoid Russian topics. The information they present is often not necessarily wrong. But it’s not designed to convey anything except the most superficial appearance of intellectual rigour while more covertly pushing pro-Kremlin messages.

For example, one YouTube video released in early July is titled ‘The main sources of fake news’. Despite the name, it never names any sources. Instead, it mocks fields like ‘grievance studies’ and ‘gender studies’, in a possible nod towards the US culture wars and right-wing fixations on identity politics. The video even comes with English subtitles.

It also warns against ‘bot farms’, without mentioning the most notorious farm of all – the St Petersburg troll farm once known as the Internet Research Agency. The narration ominously claims that disinformation aims to undermine state stability and sovereignty – a line that neatly mirrors Vladimir Putin’s justification for absolute power.

The video has one glaring weakness, aside from its fatal hypocrisy. It’s not interesting. It only has five views, one of which this writer regrettably contributed. The 25 other videos on GFCN’s YouTube channel enjoy between zero and 14 views, with just four subscribers overall. Even the group’s unverified X account has only 92 followers. Its most active voice, a self-described journalist and GFCN “moderator” named Ivan Serov, has 46 followers and an online name that screams credibility – ‘Slave of the Big Bang.’

You’d think that Kremlin spin-masters could do better. It seems that few are buying Moscow’s fact-checking pretences.

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Article and pictures first time published on the EUvsDisinfo web page. Prepared for publication by volunteers from the Res Publica - The Center for Civil Resistance.