In the second quarter of our operation in 2023, in addition to writing articles, we also organised an anti-disinformation training and received the certificate of the International Fact-checking Network.

As we already announced in our first quarterly report in 2023, our project entered a new phase: Lakmusz has been operating as part of the extended Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (HDMO-Lakmusz) since the beginning of 2023.

In the second quarter of 2023, we reached another milestone: in June, Lakmusz received the certificate of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN),after IFCN’s review had found that Lakmusz fully complies with the ethical and methodological standards set by the organisation.

We are proud to be part of the IFCN international fact-checking community. We will continue working to the best of our professional ability, in accordance with IFCN standards and the editorial methodology and ethical principles detailed on our website. The recognition by IFCN has also given the team a further boost for this.

In the second quarter of the operation of the Lakmusz-HDMO anti-disinformation project in 2023 (May – July 2023), we published 74 articles on Lakmusz (5 of which were delivered by our consortium partner: the AFP news agency). Out of the articles published, 36 were fact-checks of specific claims, while the rest of our material dealt with the disinformation environment in a broader sense in the form of analyses, interviews and podcasts.

The source of the verified claims was a politician in 16 cases (13 pro-government, 3 opposition), other public figures or organisations in 8 cases and media outlets in 4 cases. 8 of our fact-checks dealt with claims where the original source was unknown or the claim came from a private person.

Of our fact-checks, 24 were about public life and politics, and within this, we gave priority to the investigation of the spread of education-related information (9 articles on education in total). Five of our fact-checks were on health and science, but we also monitored news on the Russia-Ukraine war as well as the climate disinformation narratives that spread with greater popularity in the summer (one article sometimes covers more topics, these are also included in the aggregate).

Readership

In the second quarter of 2023, we reached 457,000 readers, with the following being our most-read content:

1. I saw it from within how pro-Fidesz troll pages operate – 67 thousand readers

2. Who is preventing teachers from getting 800,000 in salaries now? – 54,000 readers

3. Are stadiums really run down and schools ultra-modern in the Faroe Islands? – 36,000 readers

4. Few specifics, but many inaccuracies – we checked Viktor Orbán’s claims delivered in Transylvania – 31 thousand readers

5. Millennium Falcon for 745 HUF? Too good to be true – 29 thousand readers

Beyond fact-checking

Alongside fact-checking, we are also increasingly focusing on producing materials that not only examine a single claim, but also reveal the operation of the disinformation environment from different perspectives – and we present these in a range of genres, videos and podcasts in addition to our articles.

1. The first video interview of Lakmusz

We have previously published several investigations that shed light on the identities of anonymus editors of social media sites that spread false information or content that incites hatred against members of a community (in the previous quarter, for example, we wrote about a site that disclosed the personal data of antifa protesters and a mysterious Tiktokker, who is actually of Russian origin).

Continuing this series, in July we got a deeper insight into how such anonymous sites operate, thanks to the personal account of one of our sources.

In a video interview, we had a conversation with someone who managed several pro-government meme sites during the 2018 elections, charged by a former journalist from the pro-government 888.hu news portal, for 15,000 HUF per month.

The video has been viewed by more than 70,000 people and can be watched here with English subtitles.

2. Freedom of information (FOI) request

Fact-checking work is based on searching for facts, data and statistics behind the claims that are circulating in the public discourse. However, as journalists, we very often encounter obstacles if public bodies are not willing to publish public data, and journalists’ questions are not answered.

In such cases, it is possible according to the law to request data in the form of a so-called freedom of information (FOI) request, and to fight for it, even at court. This requires a lot of resources and time. At Lakmusz, we have been able to verify certain claims in several cases thanks to this work recently, and in doing so we have been able to reveal new information to the public that was previously unknown (and which regularly picked up and republished by other media outlets).

The most important FOI request in recent months was sent to Antal Rogán’s ministry in April to find out how much public money was used to promote a certain piece of disinformation, namely that 97% of Hungarians “said no” to sanctions. The contracts we looked at showed that at least 5 billion HUF had been spent on this, but we also learned about the details of smaller contracts, such as Orbán’s letter to pensioners, which was designed for 230,000 HUF . The orders are regularly won by Gyula Balásy’s group, and 444.hu interviewed Balásy live about the letter to pensioners.

3. Education and community organisation

“How to talk to people who base their worldview on false information?” This is the question around which we have organised recently an online training series of 3 sessions for Lakmusz readers.

On the last occasion, Sára Wertán, communication trainer and founder of Beszélgess jól (Talk Well), supported us as an expert on the topic, and the good advice she gave us was summarized in an article: How to talk to someone who doesn’t want to hear the facts?

In July, we could finally meet face-to-face with the most enthusiastic participants of the training, in a summer atmosphere on Margaret Island (photos on our Insta page).

Our long-term plans include a continuation of this training series, details will be announced in our newsletter.

Social media

Lakmusz’ social media presence has continued to grow and we are currently available on these platforms:

In addition, the HDMO project has launched a common website, hdmo.eu. This new platform will feature recent research on disinformation, material on informed media consumption and fact-checking articles produced in the framework of the project. We also plan to make many of our materials available in English.

HDMO’s social media platforms have also been launched and will report on the activities of all members of the consortium. You can follow them here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hdmo-hungarian-hub-097080274/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HdmoHub

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091568082722

Written by: Blanka Zöldi, editor-in-chief and Zsófia Bulla, project manager