2024 European and Croatian Parliament Elections

The campaign for the European Elections was organised in Croatia in part simultaneously with the campaign for the Croatian Parliament elections, so the context, actors and channels of communications were saturated with political pre-election content. 

During both election campaigns citizens in Croatia lacked trustworthy information (including on the decision of the Constitutional Court to forbid a political party to publicly mention who is their candidate for the Prime Minister) and were exposed to misinformation and disinformation. 

Having in mind that election periods are a factor that influences the frequency of harassment against fact-checkers, Faktograf also expected the growth of coordinated online harassment campaigns against journalists and fact-checkers. According to Mapping Media Freedom in Croatia in 2024 there have been 17 cases of various attacks against journalists, including three incidents against members of Faktograf. One of those was committed by a successful candidate and now a member of the European Parliament.

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2024 Croatian Presidential Elections

The campaign for the Presidential Elections in Croatia intensified in early September and was at its peak in December as the first round was held on December 29, 2024, and the second round on January 12, 2025. 

Although Faktograf was not approached by any platform to provide expertise relevant for risk analysis, mitigation and rapid response mechanisms in Croatia, we remain open to dialogue and engaging with all stakeholders.

2024 European and Croatian Parliament Elections

In spring 2024 Faktograf focused its activities on providing trustworthy information and debunking misinformation and disinformation to citizens in Croatia. Additionally, Faktograf engaged in promoting digital media literacy and protecting its journalists from harassment, while also cooperating with fact-checkers in the country, region, EU and globally. 

To professionally cover both election campaigns - for the European and for the Croatian Parliament, Faktograf aggregated all its reporting in the live blog. It included fact-checking the candidates’ claims from the public debates, exclusive publishing of unavailable minority opinions in the Constitutional Court, analysis of the Constitutional Court ban, reporting on the claims that political ads on Google were paid for by Polish actors,... Also, Faktograf started publishing a new media outlet focused on climate issues Klimatski.hr and co-organised a debate with candidates for the EP focused on the climate crisis.

Having in mind that Facebook exempts politicians from their third-party fact-checking program, Faktograf provided Meta the service of fact-checking in Croatia. Faktograf debunked a series of deepfake scams on Facebook such as a fake video of the editor of RTL and the Croatian president, a fake video of a "famous cardiologist" connected to the ruling party giving an interview to a TV host and fake videos of the Prime Minister promoting investment in a gas company and of the President promoting investment in an oil company.
Faktograf was also approached by TikTok and started providing fact-checking services in the period before the elections.

Faktograf called its audiences to send in questions that interest them and asks for accuracy checks on topics relevant for the European Parliament elections (One hundred days until the elections for the European Parliament - send us your questions!).
Regarding the expected spread of deep fakes, Faktograf engaged in prebunking efforts such as Elections are approaching, and AI disinformation is becoming more and more convincing and The most common topics of disinformation before the EU elections were the war in Ukraine, followed by the climate, EU policies and migration. 

Faktograf also had a series of videos on its TikTok account. 

While investigating a question from the audience on the lacking transparency of private property of a candidate for European Parliament, Faktograf’s journalist Andrej Dimitrijević was verbally attacked by the candidate who also used his profiles on Facebook and Twitter to start a hateful campaign against the journalist. The Croatian Journalists Association condemned the lynching, other media outlets continued with reporting on the politician’s assets and his party president insisted on full disclosure that was later given to the public.
This incident, as well as two other incidents against Faktograf’s journalist Melita Vrsaljko, were reported to the Mapping Media Freedom database, caused international reactions and contributed to deployment of an international mission to assess media freedom challenges in Croatia. 

In order to protect its own fact-checking operation from risks of various threats stemming from a super election year in Croatia (such as a DDoS attack or a SLAPP), Faktograf enhanced digital and offline security and safety of its members and resources. Additionally, Faktograf has engaged in the continuation of the project Decoding the Disinformation Playbook 2 with focus on disinformation tactics used by populists to intimidate and discredit journalists covering the elections to the European Parliament in 2024. 

These issues were further discussed in public events, such as the 11th GlobalFact summit in July in Sarajevo, organised by the International Fact-checking Network and hosted by the SEE Check network, as well as World Congress and Media Innovation Festival in May in Sarajevo, organised by the International Press Institute. 

Faktograf collaborated with other fact-checkers and participated in projects organised by the EFCSN: 

Elections24Check enabled building of a public database of political fact-checks, disinformation debunks, prebunking articles and narrative reports on transnational trends - in total more than 3,000 fact-checks from 46 EFCSN organisations across 36 countries and 34 languages. 

AI@EUElections delivered surveys, training sessions and educational materials on best practices, new techniques and essential tools for identifying AI generated and digitally altered content. Faktograf participated in the project and the public communications campaign to raise awareness of the dangers AI generated mis- and disinformation might pose and to educate the public in Croatia on how to identify and debunk AI-generated disinformation. 

FactCRICIS - European Fact-Checking Response in Climate Crises was a cross-country collaboration in detecting and debunking climate disinformation across the EU, that has been identified by members as a likely key topic for the elections. 

Having in mind the Commission Guidelines on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes and the Rapid Response Mechanism of the Taskforce, Faktograf actively participated in the sub-groups established within the Code: Empowerment of fact-checkers, Monitoring & Reporting, Generative AI, and Crisis Response.

Although Faktograf was not approached by any platform to provide expertise relevant for risk analysis, mitigation and rapid response mechanisms in Croatia, we remain open to dialogue and engaging with all stakeholders.

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2024 Croatian Presidential Elections

During the preelection period, the election campaign and in its aftermath, Faktograf engaged in a set of activities:

Faktograf aggregated all its reporting and fact-checking under a dedicated tag, analysed the candidates’ programmes, conducted live-fact-checking of more than 50 claims by the candidates during tv debates in the first round and in the final round, analysed new trends in online campaigns, provided the most comprehensive analysis of the controversial report from the Centre for Information Resilience and prepared the final overview of disinformation narratives present during the campaign. 

Besides publishing on the website, information was distributed via the WhatsApp channel and accounts on online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Threads and TikTok.

Regarding the expected spread of deep fakes, Faktograf provided prebunking such as Elections are approaching, and AI disinformation is becoming more and more convincing. 

3. cooperating with online platforms  
Faktograf cooperated with TikTok’s Global Fact-checking Program and Meta’s third-party fact-checking program (exempting politicians).  

4. cooperation within the Code of Practice Taskforce:
Having in mind the Commission Guidelines on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes and the Rapid Response Mechanism of the Taskforce, Faktograf participated in the ad hoc working group on Croatian Presidential Elections working under a RRS-light mechanism. Faktograf shared two situational awareness reports announcing the campaign and own activities and informing on the results of fact-checking the controversial report from the Centre for Information Resilience on the eve of the election silence. 

5. cooperation on the national level   
Faktograf participated in The Roundtable on Electoral Integrity organised by The Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries (HAKOM) that was designated as the Coordinator for Digital Services in the Republic of Croatia. 

As part of the Election Facts Database project, Faktograf cooperated with online media Lupa and Libela in sharing content in order to mitigate harmful effects of misinformation on democratic processes and the integrity of elections.