Missions to the moon have always been associated with long-debunked conspiracy theories. Now, new AI technology is being weaponised to create misleading content.
Read the latest on Spotlight from @maria.ebu.ch 🔍
Growing up in western Ireland all I knew of leprechauns was their life cycle: They came from Hong Kong (it was stamped on the bottom) & spent a brief sojourn in Ireland before being whisked away by yanks - loud in dress & demeanour - who descended gingerly from coaches at tourist shops
#spéirghorm
A slew of other similar images were also circulating, purporting to show Maduro being paraded around the airfield after his arrest by U.S. forces.
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/maduro-cap...
ICYMI: Our end-of-year review of the biggest OSINT & fact-check stories we covered at #EBUSpotlight. This has been our first year collaborating with colleagues in public service media around Europe. Much more to come in 2026!
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/2025-news-...
Enormous meme potential
youtu.be/dxXJAqOU00g
📰 New Fact-Check Dispatch - The Bondi Beach terror attack: Unpacking the viral lies and fact-checking the hero's misidentification
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/bondi-beac...
📝 @maria.ebu.ch
#OSINT #factchecking #EBUSpotlight
Since yesterday, our fact-checking network has been doing a deep dive on the misinfo surrounding the Bondi attack. See the top false claims here, and how we got to the truth. #EBUSpotlight
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/bondi-beac...
COP30 is here!
We've done a huge prebunk of claims circulating about COP summits, the credentials of Brazil, and how best to tackle the climate emergency.
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/from-clima...
Krisen sind immer ein gutes Einfallstor für Fakes. Zum Hurricane Melissa kursieren spektakuläre KI-Videos und altes Material. 🦈
@maria.ebu.ch warnt vorm Risiko für vielbeschäftigte Redaktionen, die in kurzen Nachrichtenzyklen nach Inhalten suchen.
spotlight.ebu.ch/p/deluge-of-...
Our investigation: an agency of the Israeli government deployed cross-platform advertising and used state social media accounts to directly target and encourage the public in participating countries to vote for the Israeli entry in the Eurovision Song Contest
Wrote this review of the week in fact-checks, featuring our colleagues from RTVE🇪🇸 VRT🇧🇪 SVT🇸🇪 EBU🇨🇭 BBC🇬🇧 and Deutsche Welle🇩🇪
Free to read & subscribe! 💡
Both the platforms and the publishing news organisations need to keep on top of this. The impact of 1 or 20 of these comments at a time of such grief is grossly underestimated. Platforms and publishers have a duty of care to vulnerable, grieving families.
To think of the absolute shit being spammed under sensitive posts, which are being monitored and read by the families of bereaved people, is heartbreaking.
When we've had deaths in the family, relatives have taken great solace in the condolences and messages people leave under their death notices. We've read them out to our grandmother in the lulls during those mind-boggling days between death and funeral.
Someone I know died recently. In the Facebook comments beneath articles about his tragic death, there's an influx of spam comments among the condolences, containing links purporting to show the accident that killed him.
As a catholic, nothing more jarring to me than seeing a dude wearing a hoodie preaching onstage somewhere in the vicinity of a drum set
Still from Club Penguin
Bold of us to assume they're not also living in a society
My Animal Crossing island just got hit with 10% tariffs
The fact that people keep asking Grok to explain or confirm stories on X instead of activating a few brain cells is enough to make you despair for the future
When Trump says these tariffs are “reciprocal” it’s important to know he’s counting stuff like VAT – which is charged on domestic products as well as imports – as tariffs, which no-one else does. Because they’re not.
So the numbers he’s giving are all nonsense.
All this and you can still go out to a shop or bar without any hassle. Living the dream!
I can't believe I posted this before he literally threw merch out to the audience
Trump holding a card detailing tariffs on various countries
Oh so we've gone full game-show
The year is 2025. Amazon finally launches in Ireland.
Leo Varadkar Instagram story saying: Conor is convicted criminal and a rapist. Good Irish dads teach their sons to detest men like Conor and their daughters to avoid men like him. Irish America - know this. Period!
Meme: Ger her, Jade
In advance of #stpatricksday, here's a thread of essential articles about Irish stuff which you can present to international friends who wish to understand us better.
First up: a tale of two Taytos, by Róisín Lanigan.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/4005...
Sure, it's for the benefit of the US "special relationship" with Britain — the most important and special centre of the commonwealth.
Which really begs the question: why do Canadians or any other independent commonwealth nations put up with being the lesser child of a foreign power?
From an Irish perspective, it has always seemed utterly bizarre that the head of state of Canada is the British monarch.
So it's even more dumbfounding to imagine their king inviting Donald Trump for a state visit in the face of the wild threats he's made against Canada, one of his territories.
