If yes, list these implementation measures here
From January to June 2026, Newtral maintained its commitment to providing proportionate and appropriate information to support the European Commission's rapid response system. In this reporting period, Newtral's main contribution under this Commitment related to the crisis of immigration in Ceuta, for which Newtral engaged in extensive, real-time public verification and reporting actions, and became part of a dedicated Taskforce subgroup set up to address the crisis.
To coordinate this work and provide direct feedback on crisis response, Newtral's Head of Fact-Checking attended three meetings on this issue, including one in-person roundtable held in Brussels. This session brought together a small group of around 20 participants, including representatives from the European Commission, the EEAS, the European Parliament, online platforms and Spanish fact-checking members directly involved in the Ceuta response, and provided a constructive and open forum for discussion.
- Participation in discussions: contributed directly to Taskforce and roundtable discussions on the nature of the Ceuta situation, including whether it constituted a DSA-defined crisis, whether the Code of Conduct is the appropriate instrument to address it, and how to handle harmful content falling outside third-party fact-checking programmes.
- Reporting on field insights and experience: shared first-hand observations from its verification work on the ground, including its assessment that no clear evidence of coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB) was identified during the Ceuta events.
- Providing situational context: supplied platforms and institutional participants with up-to-date context on the disinformation dynamics observed around Ceuta, helping inform discussions on the operational demands of crisis-mode monitoring and reporting.
- Contributing to existing crisis-mitigation mechanisms: stressed the demonstrated impact of platforms' fact-checking programmes and highlighted the value of mechanisms already in place to mitigate crisis situations, while also underlining the need to safeguard fact-checkers' independence, noting that some parts of the fact-checking community view closer cooperation mechanisms with a degree of caution.
Beyond this coordination work, Newtral's daily workflow during the reporting period was also directly shaped by the crisis, with a marked increase in disinformation content requiring verification — both specifically related to the Ceuta situation and, more broadly, concerning immigration as a topic. This increase reinforced Newtral's core objectives under the Code: sustaining rapid, evidence-based debunking capacity at a moment of heightened public interest and vulnerability to manipulation, and ensuring that verified information reached both the public and platform partners promptly enough to be operationally useful. Notably, Newtral remains one of the few fact-checking organisations in Spain that consistently monitors and fact-checks political discourse, a capacity that proved particularly relevant during this period, as much of the disinformation and misleading framing around the Ceuta crisis originated in or was amplified by political statements and debate.
Our educational outreach through workshops and training programs across Spanish institutions served as an additional component of our preparedness strategy, building societal resilience against the types of disinformation tactics observed in other European contexts during this monitoring period.
