AFP closely monitors misinformation around news events and has debunked hundreds of pieces of false information around the Ukraine war, as well as around major elections and the Covid pandemic.
Since 2017, AFP has consolidated its position as a world leader in digital investigations, building a network of more than 140 journalists to respond to the proliferation of online misinformation.
AFP publishes certified courses on digital investigation techniques on an online training platform for journalists and journalism students, in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish as well as short videos with online investigation tips in English, French and Spanish, supported by the Google News Initiative.
AFP co-developed INVID-WeVerify, an essential verification tool used by many in the online investigation community.
AFP works with journalists and researchers to tackle disinformation, including the UkraineFacts project and the CoronavirusFacts Alliance, led by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).
AFP led Objectif Desinfox - a coalition of 23 French media organisations tackling misinformation around the 2022 elections in France.
Since 2021, AFP has increasingly been involved in collaborative projects between European media, researchers and other experts to tackle disinformation, including regional hubs of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). AFP is also among the organisations leading the European Fact-Checking Standards Network Project (EFCSN), and a partner of Vera.ai, a research and development project focusing on disinformation analysis and AI-supported verification tools and services. Since 2023, AFP has partnered with the Narratives Observatory combating Disinformation in Europe Systematically (NODES), a pilot project to monitor and analyse the spread of disinformation narratives in Europe.
In India, AFP works with the ekta election consortium, and with Tsek.ph in the Philippines. In Latin America AFP works with LatamChequea and with Comprova in Brazil. AFP works on videos for younger audiences in Africa with ViralFacts, a project with fact checkers and the WHO.
AFP is a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) code of principles and has a third party fact checking relationship with Meta, details of which are found here. AFP teams in Brazil, Mexico, the United States (in Spanish), India, Germany and France also operate WhatsApp tiplines through which the public can submit possible claims for investigation.
AFP uses the Claim Review tool in its fact checking articles. This allows search engines, such as Google and Bing, to easily present fact checks in response to searches for specific claims.
