Lessons from the Frontlines of Disinformation: What Central and Eastern European Fact-Checkers Have Learned

Across Central and Eastern Europe, the past decade has witnessed an unprecedented wave of electoral activity, with citizens heading to the polls with remarkable frequency. Bulgaria alone has conducted eight general elections between 2021 and 2026, while the Czech Republic has introduced new voting mechanisms like postal voting. Romania and Moldova have cycled through presidential, parliamentary, and local elections, and Hungary recently experienced what many consider its most consequential election in twenty years. Throughout this electoral turbulence, these nations have become battlegrounds not just for political ideas, but for truth itself. Domestic disinformation campaigns and foreign interference operations have become so pervasive that fact-checkers have emerged as crucial defenders of democratic integrity, working tirelessly to expose false narratives and provide citizens with accurate, reliable information. Their experiences, hard-won through countless election cycles, offer invaluable lessons that extend far beyond their region.

The first and perhaps most critical lesson these fact-checkers have learned is the necessity of anticipating the unexpected and preparing comprehensive explainers on contentious issues before they explode into public discourse. Horatiu Bontea, a journalist at Romania’s Factual, candidly admits to a significant miscalculation: his team failed to take far-right candidate Calin Georgescu seriously before the 2024 presidential election, assuming he was too marginal to warrant extensive scrutiny. This assumption proved disastrously wrong when Georgescu won the first round, only for the entire election to be annulled after intelligence documents revealed a sophisticated foreign influence operation involving dubious TikTok accounts and secret payments to influencers. The lesson was clear: no candidate is too fringe to ignore, and preparation must be exhaustive. Fact-checkers across the region have embraced this principle through pre-bunking, creating detailed explainers about electoral processes, postal voting systems, and opinion polls before false claims about them can take root. Jan Fridrichovský, editor-in-chief of the Czech site Demagog, emphasizes the importance of predicting high-interest topics and writing about them in advance, a strategy that proved particularly valuable when postal voting was introduced in the Czech Republic amid fears of widespread disinformation. This proactive approach has become essential, as waiting for falsehoods to emerge before responding puts fact-checkers perpetually on the back foot.

Innovation in formats and strategic partnerships has proven equally crucial in reaching audiences increasingly immune to traditional fact-checking approaches. Live fact-checking during televised debates has emerged as a particularly powerful tool, with Romania’s Factual successfully deploying teams of journalists, editors, and external experts to debunk statements in real-time, delivering corrections within hours rather than days. Recognizing that younger generations consume information differently, fact-checkers have embraced short vertical videos, Instagram carousels, and collaborations with popular Gen Z influencers. The Hungarian site Lakmusz experimented with one-minute video summaries that reached unprecedented audiences, while also producing English-language content to serve international interest in their country’s disinformation ecosystem. The Czech Republic’s Demagog pioneered short video content before their latest election, but truly innovated by partnering directly with TikTok, creating media literacy-focused videos that appeared prominently on the platform’s election landing page and reached millions of users through advertising support. Moldova’s Stop Fals’ took a different approach, collaborating with the public broadcaster to analyze candidate statements and even working with popular cartoonists to expose the most absurd false claims, such as the allegation that President Maia Sandu was purchasing sperm from gay celebrities like Elton John. Petru Macovei, executive director of the Association of Independent Press, emphasizes the critical importance of partnering with trusted community figures—social workers, local influencers, even postmen—because these are the voices that rural citizens and older generations genuinely trust, making them invaluable channels for countering disinformation.

Education has emerged as a cornerstone of fact-checking work, with all five organizations featured here conducting media literacy workshops that extend well beyond election periods. The Hungarian team visited high schools and civic organizations, with one journalist recounting a particularly memorable visit to a small village near the Romanian border where most of the 300 residents, primarily of Roma background, relied almost exclusively on Facebook and the public broadcaster for news—sources saturated with government propaganda. Rather than attempting to dictate what news sources citizens should consume, the goal was to foster critical thinking and healthy skepticism toward all information. Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria have all developed media literacy programs specifically targeting senior citizens, who are particularly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns and online scams. The Bulgarian site Factcheck.bg has created an innovative project allowing elderly citizens to submit posts they want verified, which serves the dual purpose of protecting vulnerable populations and providing journalists with valuable insights into what content algorithms are serving different demographic groups. Moldova’s API has pioneered intergenerational approaches, bringing young people and older citizens together for joint training sessions and community projects, recognizing that media literacy is a long-term investment in societal resilience. As Macovei notes, seniors are particularly active during election periods, making them essential audiences for these educational initiatives.

Regarding foreign interference, the fact-checkers’ experiences reveal a complex picture that defies simple narratives. Russian influence operations have been most extensive in Moldova and Bulgaria, where pro-Russian parties hold parliamentary seats and historical, cultural, and religious ties to Russia run deep. In Bulgaria’s latest election, which brought pro-Russian candidate Rumen Radev to power, Facebook groups shared and amplified Russian disinformation while explicitly supporting his campaign, with an unusually explicit overlap between foreign and domestic narratives. Moldova faces an even more severe challenge, with territories like Transnistria and Gagauzia under enormous Russian influence, compounded by the Russian Orthodox Church’s sway, Kremlin influence over media ecosystems, and a sophisticated fake news network linked to sanctioned oligarch Ilan Shor. However, the reality is more nuanced than a simple narrative of all-powerful Russian interference. The Czech Republic’s 2025 election saw extensive domestic disinformation that far outweighed foreign influence, with hundreds of fake TikTok accounts spreading pro-Russian and anti-establishment content, but no evidence of direct Russian operation. Similarly, Hungary witnessed disinformation campaigns linked to known Russian groups like Storm-1516, targeting challenger Péter Magyar with fabricated claims about connections to Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking network, yet these campaigns reached only a few hundred users—dwarfed by domestic disinformation spread by ruling party allies, including AI-generated war videos implying Hungarian soldiers would be sent to Ukraine, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views. This pattern suggests that while foreign interference is real and persistent, domestic actors often pose the greater threat to information integrity.

Perhaps the most troubling challenge facing fact-checkers is their increasingly frequent characterization as censors, an accusation that complicates their work and exposes them to harassment. Both Demagog in the Czech Republic and Lakmusz in Hungary participated in the European Union’s Rapid Response System, an initiative designed to help fact-checkers understand disinformation landscapes and report violations to platforms for action. Yet this participation became a liability during election campaigns, with fact-checkers labeled as internet censors allegedly wielding outsized influence over electoral outcomes. The harassment has intensified with each election cycle, with attacks frequently originating from political actors seeking to discredit fact-checkers’ work. While these attacks paradoxically demonstrate that fact-checking does matter, enduring them takes a toll. The organizations have developed various coping strategies, from notifying police in serious cases to simply ignoring harassment to avoid amplifying false accusations. Macovei articulates the prevailing philosophy: giving false allegations more attention only rewards bad actors. Despite these challenges, the fact-checkers remain committed to their essential work, drawing resilience from the knowledge that their efforts contribute meaningfully to democratic integrity. Their experiences across countless elections have taught them that preparation, innovation, education, nuanced understanding of threats, and courage in the face of attacks are not just professional strategies but fundamental necessities for preserving truth in an increasingly contested information landscape. As they look toward future elections, these lessons will continue to guide their work, offering a model for fact-checkers everywhere navigating the treacherous waters of modern political communication.