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Published September 16, 2025 | Version v4
Report Open

An Iberian Outlook: Report on Social Media Disinformation in Spanish, Portuguese and EU elections and detection tools

  • 1. Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, CIES-Iscte
  • 2. ROR icon Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
  • 3. ROR icon University of Minho
  • 4. Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon
  • 5. OberCom - Observatory on Communication
  • 6. OBS* Observatorio
  • 7. OberCom - Observat´ório da Comunicação
  • 8. Fundación Cibervoluntarios
  • 9. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
  • 10. Universidad Carlos III
  • 11. ROR icon Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
  • 12. Observatório da Comunicação
  • 13. Instituto Português de Administração de Marketing de Lisboa
  • 14. Cenjor - Centro de formação para jornalistas
  • 15. Club Abierto de Editores (CLABE)

Description

In this inaugural report for the SmartVote project, we establish the groundwork for the projects’ intervention, aiming to provide access, knowledge and skills that allow for technology to enable autonomy and social participation in wider society. We specifically aim to tackle the issue of disinformation and its impact during electoral processes and referendums as a threat to democracy, and the role of news and journalism and technology in the process. On the technology side we will create technological resources which allow for the identification and mitigation of disinformation.

The overall objective of the SmartVote project is to ensure that all people have access to, learn about, and use technology to promote their autonomy, increasing their opportunities, strengthening their rights, and encouraging their social participation. More specifically, it addresses the phenomenon of disinformation, especially during referendums and electoral periods, as it distorts the process, values, and purposes of democratic political systems.
In this report we the analysis of a include a database of AI initiatives aimed at combating disinformation in Europe and abroad (n=125). The database is publicly available and can be found here.

Despite the aim to stimulate positive impacts in wider society, the project will directly work with young people aged 18 to 25 in Spain and Portugal. The Iberian dimension of the project implies an added level of complexity in terms of our intervention, as despite the historical familiarity both countries are quite different at a social, territorial, political and in terms of their media ecosystem and relationship with news and journalism. 

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The most recent version of this record (Version 4) includes the original report in a corrected version with minor text edits and a translated version of the report into Spanish. The translation was done by the leader of the SmartVote project -Fundación Cibervoluntarios- with coordination and editing by Octavio Barriuso Varela.

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T2.1_September16th.pdf

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Additional details

Additional titles

Translated title (Spanish)
El panorama ibérico: Informe sobre la desinformación en redes sociales durante las elecciones en la Unión Europea, España y Portugal, así como herramientas para su detección

Related works

Is supplemented by
Dataset: 10.5281/zenodo.15305387 (DOI)