One in four European Union citizens trusts information obtained through social media and messaging apps, and one in two believes that it is the responsibility of journalists to fight the spread of fake news, and only one in three believes that it is also the responsibility of citizens (European Commission, 2018).

In the meantime, Facebook has officially reported that, between October 2017 and June 2024, it has deleted more than 30 billion fake accounts (Facebook, 2024), almost ten times the total number of active users of the platform (Kemp, 2024) and more than 3.8 times the global population (World Bank, 2022). Studies show that fake news is up to 70% more likely to be shared than real news, real news takes up to six times longer than fake news to reach the same audience (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018). Also, almost 49.6% of internet traffic in 2023 was made by bots (Distil Networks, 2024), so not by human beings, which increased compared to 2017 from 35.1%, and almost 32% of them were bad bots (which have malicious behaviour, often, of criminality) (Distil Networks, 2021). 

The online manipulation, disinformation and fake news has a greate impact on our societies. The Online fake news and disinformation: recognise and verify BIP aims to teach CIVIS students how to identify online manipulation and disinformation, to debunk fake news and how to avoid to become a victim, as a journalist, during day to day information verification process, but also as a simple internet user.

This program will also help students understand the psychological mechanisms that guide the behaviour of online and social media users, which are the basis of all persuasive technologies algorithms. This BIP aims to be an introduction behind the scenes of the digital world in which we all spend more and more time every day (last year, globally, we spent daily, an average, 6 hours and 40 minutes on the Internet) (Kemp, S., 2024).

The physical mobility section of the BIP will take place between 8-12 December 2025, in Bucharest. It will cover: 

• face-to-face lecture and class discussions about fake news hits (4 hours); 
• face-to-face lecture and class discussions on digital footprint, personal data, data protection and cyber security for journalists and discussions about the Cambridge Analytica, Schrems vs Facebook and TikTok and the presidential elections in Romania case studies and about a documentary related to the topic The Social Dilemma (4 hours); 
• face-to-face lecture and class discussions on the pre-publishing/ broadcasting (ex-ante) and post- publishing/ broadcasting (ex-post) information verification techniques for text, photo and video, The International Fact-Checking Network and The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) and international, European and national fact-checking platforms (2 hours);
•  face-to-face lecture, class discussions and practical activities of fact-checking of text, photo and video using different theoretical models and online tools available (6 hours);
•  face-to-face field visit to a fact-checking service newsroom (2 hours);
•  face-to-face orientation meeting about presentations and final report assessment (2 hours);
•  face-to-face visit to The "Peleș" Palace in Sinaia, Prahova County, (2 hours);
•  face-to-face visit to The Romanian Palace of the Parliament (2 hours).

The virtual component of the course will be held between 9 October - 18 December 2025 and will include:

• online lecture and class discussions about online disinformation and important related concepts and, also, about the gatekeeping and gatewatching paradigms from the perspective of selecting and publishing journalistic information and the impact of disinformation and fake news in recent scientific research; AI tools to fight disinformation (2 hours); 
• online lecture and class discussions about the European approaches to the challenges, attemps and limits to curb online disinformation (2 hours);
•  online lecture and class discussions about the influence of cognitive biases on the credibility of disinformation and fake news (2 hours);
•  online lecture and class discussions about manipulation techniques in the digital environment (The "Lund" Model) (2 hours);
•  online lecture and class discussions about worldwide approaches to disinformation, Argentina and Japan (4 hours);
•  online lecture and class discussions about disinformation and hate speech in international organisations, models of regulation among "Digital Empires", European Union regulation: transnational and national policies and key actors and networks (2 hours);
• online lecture, class discussions and practical activities of debunking and fact-checking using the Three Step Fact-Checking Method for text, photo and video (4 hours). 

*full programme attached