An editor wearing a face mask works in the control room at C5N news TV channel on April 17, 2020 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

An editor wearing a face mask works in the control room at C5N news TV channel on April 17, 2020 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. © Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images

Focus

The Infodemic

Years active: 2020-present

Disinformation, fake news and propaganda are emerging as among the most powerful threats of the modern age. Facilitated by new forms of media and spread by governments and non-state actors alike, these potent tools have far-reaching consequences for human rights and media freedoms around the world.

IWPR’s global networks of reporters, activists and rights defenders are working to document, expose and build resilience to this growing danger.

Latest on the infodemic

Moldova blocked access to more than 20 Russian media websites in October of last year, including Russia Today, saying they had been used as part of an information war against the country.

Moldova blocked access to more than 20 Russian media websites in October of last year, including Russia Today, saying they had been used as part of an information war against the country. © Misha Friedman/Getty Images

World Press Freedom Day 2024

Moldova Struggles to Balance Security and Free Speech

Opinion remains divided on how effective bans on pro-Kremlin outlets have been in protecting country’s information space.

Online abuse and harassment against women from the Middle East and North Africa region is a pervasive and concerning issue that often silences their voices and restricts their fundamental right to freedom of expression.

Online abuse and harassment against women from the Middle East and North Africa region is a pervasive and concerning issue that often silences their voices and restricts their fundamental right to freedom of expression.

International Women's Day 2024

“The Space for Abuse Seems Endless”

Gender disinformation aims to create a hostile environment for women with the goal of shaming, intimidating, silencing and excluding them.

Under Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, criminal cases have been initiated in which journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned.

Under Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, criminal cases have been initiated in which journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned. © Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Kyrgyz Media Under Pressure

Criminal cases decried as attempts to intimidate and impose censorship.

A Lebanese girl lights a candle during an event honouring Issam Abdallah, Lebanese photojournalist killed by a missile strike of the IDF on October 13 while working in southern Lebanon, on October 22, 2023 in Beirut, Lebanon. Journalists and other civilians have been killed or wounded as Lebanon's southern frontier with Israel sees its most active fighting in years, with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group trading cross-border fire with Israel over the last two weeks. Regional tensions have flared fo

A Lebanese girl lights a candle during an event honouring Issam Abdallah, Lebanese photojournalist killed by a missile strike of the IDF on October 13 while working in southern Lebanon, on October 22, 2023 in Beirut, Lebanon. Journalists and other civilians have been killed or wounded as Lebanon's southern frontier with Israel sees its most active fighting in years, with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group trading cross-border fire with Israel over the last two weeks. Regional tensions have flared following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel, prompting that country to launch a siege of the Gaza Strip. © Manu Brabo/Getty Images

The Israel-Hamas Conflict / First Person

Fake News Fuels Fear in Lebanon

A confusing media landscape leaves citizens desperately searching for credible information.

An AFPTV cameraman films while smoke plumes billow during Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023 as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day. Thousands of people, both Israeli and Palestinians have died since October 7, 2023, after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip, entered southern Israel in a surprise attack leading Israel to declare war on Hamas in Gaza on October 8.

An AFPTV cameraman films while smoke plumes billow during Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023 as raging battles between Israel and the Hamas movement continue for the sixth consecutive day. Thousands of people, both Israeli and Palestinians have died since October 7, 2023, after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip, entered southern Israel in a surprise attack leading Israel to declare war on Hamas in Gaza on October 8. © Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

The Israel-Hamas Conflict

Interview: The War on Disinformation

Open source intelligence (OSINT) can provide facts – but impatient, angry audiences often prefer opinions.

Palestinians injured in Israeli air raids arrive at Nasser Medical Hospital on October 24, 2023 in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza. Two weeks after a deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel that sparked a retaliatory siege of Gaza, in which thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

Palestinians injured in Israeli air raids arrive at Nasser Medical Hospital on October 24, 2023 in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Gaza. Two weeks after a deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel that sparked a retaliatory siege of Gaza, in which thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. © Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

The Israel-Hamas Conflict / Comment

When the News Becomes a Nightmare

The task of journalism is not to have the answers, but rather to be an honest witness.

Kyrgyz authorities are moving to shut down the nonprofit Kloop Media Foundation, which includes the independent news outlet Kloop.kg. Founded in 2007, Kloop.kg is one of the country's leading journalism outlets, known for its investigations into corruption schemes.

Kyrgyz authorities are moving to shut down the nonprofit Kloop Media Foundation, which includes the independent news outlet Kloop.kg. Founded in 2007, Kloop.kg is one of the country's leading journalism outlets, known for its investigations into corruption schemes. © Monica Ellena

Kyrgyz Authorities Move to Shut Down Independent News Outlet

Investigative publication Kloop is the latest target of authorities’ campaign against independent media and critical voices.

A woman sings patriotic songs of the Soviet Union during a march near the Kremlin with pro-Communist demonstrators in downtown Moscow, Russia during May Day celebrations, May 2001.

A woman sings patriotic songs of the Soviet Union during a march near the Kremlin with pro-Communist demonstrators in downtown Moscow, Russia during May Day celebrations, May 2001. © Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers

Back to the USSR? Memory Wars in the South Caucasus

Kremlin narratives have co-opted history and propagated a distorted memory of the Soviet past.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and close collaborators meet on February 26, 2022 in front of a large screen tuned on United News, the joint information telethon, which was launched at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and close collaborators meet on February 26, 2022 in front of a large screen tuned on United News, the joint information telethon, which was launched at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. © Volodymy Zelensky’s official Facebook

World Press Freedom Day 2023

Has Ukraine’s News Telethon Impacted Media Freedom?

Since the start of the war, TV stations have combined forces to produce a single informational resource.

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