Speaker
Description
This study focuses on Russian fact-checking Telegram Channel “War on Fakes”. This fact-checking effort has appeared in the context of Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022. War on Fakes sees its goal in providing impartial information in connection to situation in Ukraine and in the light of information attacks on Russia. The initial goal of this paper is to place War on Fakes in the context of the established fact-checking practices through evaluating fact-checks posted on its Telegram channel. The results of this part of the study indicate that War on Fakes is adopting the fact-checking practices used by the other agencies. These results highlighted the need to consider the use of deceptive elements by the Telegram channel, which were evident over the course of analysis. The second part of the study explores the use of deceptive practices by War on Fake as it mimics fact-checking steps used by the established agencies. Overall, the results of the study bring to the surface a previously overlooked idea in the academic literature—the idea of false fact-checking.
