Taken and adapted from stopfake.org
The Kremlin has been using it for a long time. fact checking as a weapon. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russians have opened channels on Telegram and other social media that are supposedly dedicated to “exposing Western propaganda” and “defending the truth.” But in fact, they are promoting the same Russian disinformation narratives as always, but from a different angle. This technique is intended to neutralize the efforts of real fact-checkers, who work in accordance with international standards and use facts, not propaganda templates, to debunk lies.
This was not enough for the Kremlin, so now Russia wants to create a separate “international association of fact-checkers,” the so-called Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN), to unite those who share “Russian views and values.”
The creation of such a quasi-organization was the sole purpose of the so-called international forum “Dialogue on Lies 2.0”, held in Moscow on November 20, which brought together all the Kremlin propagandists and their supporters in the world. The first and main panel of this meeting, which included the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova, one of the main propagandists from Telegram – the owner of the channel “Rybar” Mikhail Zvinchuk and the CEO of the TASS agency Andrei Kondrashov, as well as others.
Besides the usual lament that the West continues to aggressively “impose” its point of view, while the Russians remain steadfast in the “fight for the truth”, it was at this conference that it was decided to create a new international association of fact-checkers. The existing ones – the International Fact-Checkers Network (IFCN), where hibrid.info and stopfake are members, and the European network EFCSN – are seen by Russians as “something that only fulfills political missions and sometimes has nothing to do with real fact-checking.” The Russian association, on the other hand, aims to offer “healthy alternatives that will help make the world a better place.”
This “healthy alternative” was introduced by Volodymyr Tabak, the chief executive of the non-profit organization “Dialog.” According to journalists' research"Dialog", among other things, also distributes propaganda with money from the Russian budget, and during the war with Ukraine, "Dialog" switched to providing supporting information to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
He promised to unite people like him – those who “share our views and values” (i.e. those of the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense). Secondly, Tabak promised to teach everyone how to fact-check, offline and online. In addition to these values and training, “fact-checkers” who agree to join this “alternative” will be offered FREE access to a space (which they say is not available in other associations) where they can analyze fake news, identify it, and find similar ones. In fact, every professional fact-checking organization uses a variety of such platforms and, thanks to memberships in international organizations, they are given free access and other links for verifying information, but it seems that “Dialog” has not carried out fact-checking here either. There is no innovation at this point.
Tabak also said that this Russian association will accept individuals, not just organizations. In fact, anyone who wants to “verify facts based on the values of Russia’s propagandists” will be able to become a member. The list of participants at the event consists of people who have been repeatedly caught as authors of misinformation content by fact-checkers – part of the IFCN.
The association's partner is the TASS news agency, the Kremlin's main state propaganda machine. TASS Director General Andrey Kondrashov, who signed the creation of the "association" with Tabaku, said that it had no choice "because TASS has a historic mission in fact-checking." But it is TASS publications that are often detected as containing misinformation.
Finally, the founders of this association have also indicated a code of responsibility for fact-checkers regarding issues of objectivity and methodology, which had to be signed before membership. To say that the Russian Association of Fact-Checkers is more open than Western ones, Kondrashov even stated that “the American association checks its members every year, for political loyalty,” because these member organizations of the association “work only in the interests of other states.” However, this refers to an independent audit conducted by auditors from different countries who, among other things, also check compliance with codes and standards, and TASS would not have been able to pass such an audit, but here too the fact-checking failed.
As a result, Russia is intensifying its use of fact-checking as a weapon, offering its “truth,” its “methodology,” and its vision of the world. By enabling anyone sympathetic to Russia to become a “fact-checker,” the Kremlin is discrediting what professionals do and is fighting for those who are not only unsure what to believe but also whether they can trust verified information. This is another round of information warfare in the post-truth world, and the fight for facts will have to continue.