1. What is disinformation?
Disinformation has become a major concern for democracies. These are some of the main ideas related to disinformation:
- Disinformation campaigns are understood as behaviour patterns exhibited in the realm of information, carried out in a coordinated and intentional manner to manipulate information, whose implementation and dissemination constitute a threat to the country’s interests, to its constitutional values, democratic processes, democratically constituted institutions and, consequently, to national security. Disinformation campaigns do not always contain fake news; their goal is to distort citizens' understanding of the world and of current events.
- Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) refers to disinformation spread by foreign actors and constitutes a major concern for democracies.
International organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union, and defensive alliances such as NATO, consider disinformation a threat to human rights, democracy and security. Similarly, according to Global Risks Report 2025 published by the World Economic Forum, disinformation is the top-ranked short- to medium-term concern across all risks to the economy and the population globally, ahead of climate change and armed conflict.
Spain has consolidated its role as a committed and active player in combating information manipulation and disinformation, at both the European level and globally. This commitment shows in Spain's cooperation with partners and allies, for example in the Declaration of Intent on Spanish-French Cooperation on Protection of the Information Space, recently signed with France.
New technologies and social media have facilitated the spread of disinformation, owing, among other factors, to their use of algorithms, which amplify sensationalist content; their use of bots, which automates the process; and the involvement of State, non-State and para-Stateactors in propaganda campaigns.
The negative impacts of disinformation have been apparent in electoral processes such as the Brexit referendum and the recent elections in Romania, in crises such as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 floods in Valencia and recent events in Ceuta, as well as in armed conflicts such as the invasion of Ukraine. In all these cases, disinformation has eroded trust in institutions, increased social polarization, and interfered in public policy.
2. Prevention techniques: prebunking and debunking
A number of strategic and planned communication techniques have been proposed to tackle an increasingly widespread problem. These include institutional prebunking and debunking.
- Prebunking: performance of a set of communication interventions to immunize or forewarn people against fake messages.
- Debunking: performance of a set of reactive communication interventions to debunk or neutralize false, inaccurate or misleading information.
The official social media accounts of ministries and international organizations play an increasingly important role in
prebunking and
debunking false narratives. Such accounts are used as
evidence-based public communication tools with the aim of protecting the information space, guaranteeing citizens' right to receive accurate information and safeguarding the credibility of democratic institutions.
In this regard, the communication strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation uses a comprehensive approach that includes monitoring and detecting disinformation, debunking fake news and hoaxes, and publishing articles containing accurate information to prevent the spread of disinformation. A new section has been created on the Ministry's website specifically for the last of these activities. Named Foreign Affairs Explained, it responds to fake news with articles containing accurate, clear and detailed information.
3. Fact checkers
Essential in the fight against disinformation is coordination between key players such as the Central Administration, international organizations (EU, NATO, G7, OECD), academic institutions, civil society and fact checkers. Coordination allows us to act more swiftly in detecting and responding to the threat, achieving better results and avoiding overlapping.
Fact checking is fundamental to combat information manipulation and foreign interference. Fact checkers help assess and verify content, in order to provide the public with independent, accurate and trustworthy information.
One of the essential tasks performed by fact checkers is to alert people to possible fake news circulating on social media by debunking claims, while also helping to monitor possible campaigns conducted on social media by identifying and tracing malicious disinformation content.
The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) is a European initiative which brings together fact checkers, European academic institutions, media literacy professionals and experts in disinformation to combat this scourge.
Several fact-checking agencies currently exist in Spain, among them EFE VERIFICA, RTVE VERIFICA, MALDITA, NEWTRAL and VERIFICAT.
4. Combating disinformation internationally
Combating information manipulation and disinformation requires close cooperation with partners and allies.
- Bilateral cooperation
At the bilateral level, Spain maintains close cooperation with partners and allies such as France, with whom it shares a determination to implement cooperation projects aiming to support the media to guarantee trustworthy, fact checked, professional and independent information and to combat disinformation and fake news.
To this end, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, alongside his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot, have signed a Declaration of Intent on Spanish-French Cooperation on Protection of the Information Space.
- European Union
In 2019, the European External Action Service (EEAS) launched the Rapid Alert System (RAS), which has national contact points to raise the alarm instantly about disinformation campaigns and in which Spain takes part. The aim of the Rapid Alert System is to facilitate the sharing of insights related to disinformation campaigns between Member States and the EU, facilitating monitoring of social media to detect disinformation campaigns and actions, as well as, the design of shared responses when necessary.
Other initiatives launched by EEAS include EUvsDisinfo, a project aiming to counter disinformation campaigns attributed to foreign actors, especially Russia, and strengthen European citizens' information resilience. Since its creation in 2015, this service has analysed and documented thousands of examples of content containing disinformation, generating a public database that registers examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation.
The European Democracy Shield is a European Commission initiative to protect and promote strong and resilient democracies across the EU. To combat the threat posed by disinformation in electoral processes, the EU seeks by means of this mechanism to coordinate measures to protect the key pillars of our democratic systems: free, fair elections, free and independent media that safeguard the integrity of the information space, a vibrant civil society and strong democratic institutions.
The European Centre for Democratic Resilience was launched in February 2026. This Centre will act a framework for the sharing of information between Member States to coordinate measures and capabilities against common disinformation threats. The Centre's goal is to connect and coordinate existing networks and structures with the support of the aforementioned EEAS Rapid Alert System.
- NATO
NATO has been combating disinformation since its creation in 1949. It considers disinformation and hybrid threats a threat to security, and has boosted its efforts to combat disinformation since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Internally, NATO coordinates Allies' fight against disinformation through the NATO Rapid Response Group (NRRG), which provides early warnings and proposals for rapid action to counter emerging threats, and through NATO's Information Environment Assessment (IEA), an operative system that combines information provided by Allies with information from external sources to set up a communication strategy against disinformation. The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence was established in 2014, with headquarters in Riga. Its mission is to contribute substantially to improving the strategic communication capabilities of NATO, its Allies and its Partners.
NATO also cooperates with other partners such as the EU through the EEAS Rapid Alert System, the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, the UN and OECD. NATO also works with private companies, the media, digital platforms and members of civil society to address this threat.