Demagog

Report March 2025

Submitted
Demagog is the first Polish fact-checking organization, established in 2014. Our mission is to combat disinformation and improve the quality of public debate by providing access to unbiased and credible information. For more than 10 years we’ve been fact-checking political claims, keeping track of the promises and debunking harmful disinformation. We strive to build a strong misinformation-resilient civil society that keeps politicians accountable for what they say and promise. We believe that we can achieve this goal by empowering citizens with critical fact-checking and media literacy skills. That’s why we share our expertise with others in our educational project called Fact-checking Academy.

We are signatories to the 2022 European Code of Practice on Disinformation and the Polish Code of Good Practices in Combating Disinformation. We are members of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) and the Central European Digital Media Observatory Hub (CEDMO). We are partners to Meta's Third Party Fact-checking Program and TikTok's Fact-checking Program.

So far, we have fact-checked more than 6000 political claims and additionally, nearly 3000 of fake news.

Activities of our Fact-Checking Academy have ever-increasing scope. So far, we have organized more than 700 different workshops and seminars that gathered approximately 18 000 participants in total. We believe that only via scaling of our media literacy activities we can achieve meaningful change. That’s why, in parallel to our on-site workshops and seminars, we have also developed our elearning platform. Currently, almost 4000 users of the platform have access to various online courses on fact-checking, media literacy and digital skills.

We are active members of various international projects, including EU-funded consortiums. For example, we are participating in the Hatedemics project, whose aim is to strengthen the preventive and reactive measures against hate speech and disinformation online. It aims to empower NGOs/CSOs, fact-checkers, public authorities and youngsters as activists to  effectively prevent and combat polarisation, the spread of racist, xenophobic and intolerant speech, as well as conspiracy theories.

In 2021, we were awarded with the Polish-American Freedom Foundation's Sektor 3.0 prize for innovation in socially useful activities. In 2023, our work was recognized by journalists of the Press Club Poland, who distinguished our organization with their special award for supporting journalists and their audiences in defending against disinformation.

Download PDF

Elections 2024
[Note: Signatories are requested to provide information relevant to their particular response to the threats and challenges they observed on their service(s). They ensure that the information below provides an accurate and complete report of their relevant actions. As operational responses to crisis/election situations can vary from service to service, an absence of information should not be considered a priori a shortfall in the way a particular service has responded. Impact metrics are accurate to the best of signatories’ abilities to measure them].
Threats observed or anticipated
 During the reporting period, two election campaigns took place in Poland. Apart from the European elections in June, Polish local elections were organized in early April. Due to this particular national context, the nature of political debate in Poland seamlessly transitioned from a local focus to issues related to the European Union. This meant that Poland experienced a prolonged campaign period that lasted from February all the way to the European elections in June. The challenges related to these two election campaigns differed. In local elections, due to their scale, insufficient fact-checking at the local level was one of the most relevant issues. No significant disinformation campaigns related to local elections were observed. Regarding the European elections, disinformation narratives focused on specific EU policies and political agendas, rather than undermining election integrity. We can highlight a few examples of such narratives: 
  • EPBD: Disinformation narratives regarding the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive were present in the public debate on a large scale. Claims that Poles would be expropriated from their homes due to the enforcement of the measures in the Directive were propagated mainly by right-wing politicians. 
  • Migration Pact: With the approval of the new Migration and Asylum Pact, discussion regarding the potential legal consequences of this document quickly erupted. Right-wing politicians from parties like Konfederacja or Suwerenna Polska claimed that Poland would be forced to accept migrants or pay 20,000 EUR, without providing additional context regarding other measures and policies within the legal framework. It was also claimed that these new migration policies were the result of countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, and France wanting to ship or "export" their own problems to more stable countries like Poland. 
  • Green Deal: Narratives regarding issues like food imports from outside the EU were spread concerning the EU Green Deal. Politicians claimed that the EU Green Deal would lead to the destruction not only of domestic agriculture and food production in Poland, but also in the EU overall. In more radical cases, it aligned with climate change denial. We assess that the majority of EU-related disinformation during the European election campaign period originated domestically and was disseminated for the political purposes of specific candidates and parties.


Demagog Association has prioritized the election-related disinformation within the scope of its fact-checking partnerships with very large online pla]orms - Meta and TikTok. 
We were part of the EFCSN’s Elections24Check project supported by the Google News Initiative. As one of the most active participants, we have submided 2ti7 fact-checks to the repository, focusing on various EU-related issues. 
In order to overcome the challenges related with the limited scope and reach of our activities, we have partnered with the Google News Initiative to organize two fact-checking hackathons for journalists, activists and concerned citizens. The concept was to promote the idea of factchecking, share our expertise and know-how and also increase the reach of our work. 
The first hackathon before the local elections was joined by more than ti0 participants, from 19 different media outlets. Together, they have produced 75 fact-checking articles. The second hackathon before the European elections was also joined by more than ti0 participants from 10 different media outlets. They have produced 14 articles. 
As a member of the Central European Digital Media Observatory Hub we were involved in producing regional briefs on current disinformation trends related to the European elections. We have also shared our insights with other members of fact-checking community within the European Fact-Checking Standards Network, the International Fact-Checking Network, as a member of Elections Working Group in the Code of Practice Permanent Task-Force and with other stakeholders. 
Mitigations in place
Demagog Association has prioritized the election-related disinformation within the scope of its fact-checking partnerships with very large online platforms - Meta and TikTok. 
We were part of the EFCSN’s Elections24Check project supported by the Google News Initiative. As one of the most active participants, we have submitted 267 fact-checks to the repository, focusing on various EU-related issues. 

In order to overcome the challenges related with the limited scope and reach of our activities, we have partnered with the Google News Initiative to organize two fact-checking hackathons for journalists, activists and concerned citizens. The concept was to promote the idea of factchecking, share our expertise and know-how and also increase the reach of our work. 

The first hackathon before the local elections was joined by more than 60 participants, from 19 different media outlets. Together, they have produced 75 fact-checking articles. The second hackathon before the European elections was also joined by more than 60 participants from 10 different media outlets. They have produced 14 articles. 

As a member of the Central European Digital Media Observatory Hub we were involved in producing regional briefs on current disinformation trends related to the European elections. We have also shared our insights with other members of fact-checking community within the European Fact-Checking Standards Network, the International Fact-Checking Network, as a member of Elections Working Group in the Code of Practice Permanent Task-Force and with other stakeholders. 
Empowering the Fact-Checking Community
Outline approaches pertinent to this chapter, highlighting similarities/commonalities and differences with regular enforcement.
Additional projects and activities 

Demagog Association was involved in two major projects related to the elections period in Poland. 

- Elections24Check project: 
The Elections24Check project aimed at increasing cross- country collaboration in detecting and debunking European electoral disinformation across the EU while promoting the access of European citizens to verified information so they could make informed decisions in the lead up to the European Elections in June 2024. It leveraged the collective expertise of European fact-checking organisations that are verified members of the European Code of Standards for Independent FactChecking Organisations. Elections24Check was a joint project of the European Fact-Checking Standards Network and its participating member organisations, supported by the Google News Initiative. Over 40 factchecking organizations participated in the project. 

- Fact-checking hackathons: 
Demagog Association with the support of the Google News Initiative have organized two hackathons for journalists, activists, students and concerned citizens before local and European elections. The concept was to promote the idea of fact-checking, share our expertise and know-how and also increase the reach of our work. Those events supported the fact-checking empowerment of local journalists by increasing their fact-checking capabilities.