Sabri Derinöz, Geoffroy Patriarche
On October 28, 2025, EDMO BELUX 2.0 organised a workshop hosted at RTL Lëtzebuerg (Luxembourg), bringing together researchers, practitioners, educators, journalists, and policymakers to debate how disinformation mitigation inevitably raises ethical, political and communication questions, including the risk of unintended consequences. The event aimed to foster critical dialogue and to identify practices that balance effectiveness with ethical responsibility, with a particular relevance for Luxembourg and Belgium.
The workshop structured this discussion through two thematic sessions: a first session focusing on ethical issues and the politicisation of fact-checking, followed by a second session addressing communication challenges from political advertising transparency to media literacy campaigns.
The tension between politicisation and epistemic integrity in the mitigation of disinformation: the case of fact-checking
This session, led by the University of Luxembourg Institute for Digital Ethics (ULIDE), brought key reflections on the ethical implication of disinformation mitigation. These issues were then connected to everyday professional constraints and ethical dilemmas of EDMO BELUX practitioners. A central element was related to the politicization of fact-checking. Truth is socially organized, at the intersections of power and knowledge, in discourses, institutions, routines, archives and practices. In this context, shared understandings of reality are increasingly challenged through “alternative facts” and strategies that spread doubt. To counter such challenges and to approach the truth, fact-checkers typically emphasise transparent, and solid methodologies grounded in principles such as independence and fairness. It results in fact-checks that can participate to reduce false beliefs.
Yet, fact-checkers productions can still become entangled in politicisation dynamics. The session invited participants to reflect on where legitimate epistemological critique ends. Fact-checkers’ work can be perceived as having ideological leanings, and may be accused of bias, of serving a dominant political culture, or of reducing complex social realities. Fact-checking has also become a genre that can be intentionally misused, even weaponized, spreading doubt by using the codes and representations of fact-checking to produce disinformation through “fact-checks”. While there is a struggle for epistemic legitimacy, the politicisation of fact-checks can paradoxically shape public trust in paradoxical ways, strengthening it for some audiences while eroding it for others.
The discussions raised the question of how to enhance disinformation mitigation through fact-checking. One recurring issue was the difficulty of reaching audiences that are most exposed or receptive to disinformation. Different perspectives were discussed, such as a more flexible communicative approach that adapts formats, distribution strategies and editorial choices to different audiences and media logics. The idea of a democratization of the construction of truth (‘co-creation’) was also put forward: from this perspective, the process of knowledge production should be open to public dialogue, through transparent and/or participatory approaches that increase the involvement of audiences in the production and distribution of fact-checks.
Another question tackled in this session asks how can fact-checks compete with shared understandings of reality, given the group dynamics through which people construct and share understandings of reality? A point raised was the idea that fact-checks also need stories: narratives may be more than “truth”. Therefore, should fact-checking develop into stronger narrative formats or would it be counterproductive? All these reflections were blended into a more general reflection on epistemic authority, elite constructions of knowledge, and the long-term effects of trust erosion.
Communication at the crossroads of disinformation: from political advertising to media literacy
This session examined the role of strategic communication both as a key channel through which disinformation circulates, as in political communication, and as a core lever for its mitigation, as in media literacy campaigns.
Cross-country analysis of transparency and targeting of electoral advertising on Meta and Google (EU 2024 elections)
The session started with a presentation by VUB focusing on the results of a comparative study led by EDMO BELUX, in collaboration with other EDMO hubs, on political advertising during the 2024 EU elections. The presentation analysed the compliance and transparency of two Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines (VLOPSEs) – Meta and Google – on commitments made on political advertising in the context of the Code of Practice, now Code of Conduct, on Disinformation. It also assessed the use, spending and targeting by political parties during the run up to the European Parliament elections in June 2024.
The analysis provided a comparison of the definitions of political ads in the EU, assessed the VLOPSEs’ compliance with the transparency and targeting requirements, tested access to political ad data through platforms’ advertising libraries and API, and analysed how political parties in fifteen countries elected to the European Parliament made use of political advertising and targeting in the period leading up to the EU elections (April – June 2024). The analysis concluded that Meta and Google’s definitions of political advertising were not fully aligned with Regulation (EU) 2024/900, and that transparency and targeting requirements were only partially fulfilled. It also showed that, even when political ads can be retrieved through ad libraries and APIs, it does not easily translate into usable oversight due to practical limitations and the need for data reworking. The study documented the scale and patterns of paid political advertising across the dataset. In total, 30,000 ads were published and €8.7 million was spent across the 15 countries included. Ad targeting was widely used but often in a general manner.
The presentation highlighted how fast-moving platform policy decisions can reshape the transparency landscape, noting the decision by both Meta and Google to withdraw political advertising services in the EU in early October 2025 and to remove access to political ads from ad libraries, raising questions about the future conditions for monitoring and accountability.
For more information on electoral advertising on Meta and Google during the EU 2024 elections, the full report is available at https://belux.edmo.eu/fr/a-cross-country-analysis-of-electoral-advertising-on-meta-and-google-during-the-eu-2024-elections-compliance-transparency-and-targeting/
Challenges, perspectives and good practices for media literacy campaigns on disinformation
The final panel focused on a discussion on what turns media literacy campaigns into reliable tools for disinformation mitigation.
In a first stage, Média Animation presented an analysis of the various visuals on “fake news” used by stakeholders in Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Belgium, to raise awareness on disinformation. The analysis showed that these visuals are not neutral: they shape our perception of the problem, highlighting certain aspects and leaving others in the shadow. More information on this analysis can be found at https://media-animation.be/ressource/dessine-moi-les-fake-news-quels-visuels-pour-lutter-contre-la-desinformation/
In a second stage, speakers from RTBF, RTL Luxembourg and CSEM discussed challenges and shared practices for designing and running media literacy campaigns to mitigate disinformation. An emphasis was made on the importance of sense-making and tailor-made campaigns that reach the objectives and the target groups without creating ambiguity or counterproductive effects. Several media literacy campaigns carried out by EDMO BELUX were shown, highlighting the importance of the collaboration between media educators and media professionals to design tailor-made media literacy responses to disinformation. The collaboration between these different worlds was first seen as a challenge but led to fruitful results. Such collaborations led to a better, shared understanding of the stakes of disinformation mitigation that helped creating campaigns that go beyond an unproductive common sense. In the discussion, everyone agreed that media literacy campaigns benefit from this kind of integrative approach and that it should be reproduced for future campaigns. Moreover, journalists would benefit from an increased collaboration with media educators to develop audiovisual content that would better fit to their target groups, translating their fact-checking expertise into an accessible storytelling designed for social media platforms that they are sometimes not used to use.
Overall, the EDMO BELUX workshop highlighted that effective and legitimate responses to disinformation require multidisciplinary collaborations, alongside an awareness of the complex system in which disinformation processes and mitigation efforts take place, including ethical aspects and potential unintended effects.
Programme of the event: https://belux.edmo.eu/event/mitigating-disinformation-at-the-crossroads-of-ethics-politics-and-communication/