Perceived exposure to disinformation and fake news in the EU has jumped eight percentage points since 2022. Experts say media literacy and fact-checking are crucial to countering the trend.
Disinformation and fake news have become defining features in the news. The rise of social media has further accelerated their spread and visibility.
Perceived exposure to disinformation and fake news is rising across Europe, according to a Eurobarometer survey.
In 2025, more than a third of respondents in the EU (36%) said they were ‘often’ or ‘very often’ exposed to disinformation and fake news over the past seven days. This compares with 28 percent in 2022. Only 12 percent said they feel confident in recognising disinformation.
So which European countries report the highest perceived exposure to disinformation? And how confident do Europeans feel about identifying it when they encounter it?
Self-perception but not actual exposure
It's important to note that the survey measures perceived exposure to disinformation, not verified instances.
Respondents reported what they believed to be fake news, but the survey did not fact-check the content they encountered or confirm whether it was actually false.
When responses of ‘very often’ and ‘often’ are combined, perceived exposure to disinformation and fake news ranges from 26 percent in Finland and Germany to 57 percent in Hungary.
More than half of respondents also reported this perception in Romania (55%) and Spain (52%). The share was above 40 percent in Bulgaria (48%), Luxembourg (45%), Malta (45%), Greece (43%), Cyprus (42%), and Ireland (42%).
At the lower end, besides Finland and Germany (both 26%), the share was 30 percent or lower in Czechia (29%), Sweden (30%), Lithuania (30%), and France (30%). The Netherlands, Latvia, and Belgium were also close to this level, at just under one-third.
People in Eastern and Southern Europe tend to report higher exposure to disinformation, while those in Northern and Western Europe generally report lower exposure.
However, this pattern isn’t uniform: countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland report relatively high exposure, while Czechia, Italy, and Portugal report lower levels than their regions might suggest.
On average in the EU, three in ten respondents (31%) said they were ‘sometimes’ exposed to disinformation and fake news in the past seven days. This share ranged from 24 percent in Hungary to 40 percent in Sweden.
When those who answered ‘sometimes’ are included, perceived exposure rises to around two-thirds of respondents (66%) in the EU. This points to a very high overall level of perceived exposure.
In the EU, only 7 percent said they were ‘never’ exposed to disinformation and fake news, while 16 percent reported being exposed ‘rarely’. Combined, this is less than a quarter of respondents (23%).
It is also notable that the share of people who said they ‘do not know’ is relatively high, at 10 percent across the EU.
Increase recorded in 22 EU countries
Compared with the 2022 survey, the share of EU respondents who said they were ‘very often’ or ‘often’ exposed to disinformation and fake news rose by 8 percentage points (pp). The share increased in 22 EU countries and fell in four.
The rise was particularly sharp in several countries. Denmark and the Netherlands recorded the largest increases, both up 19 points. They were followed by Luxembourg (18 pp), Malta (17pp), Sweden (14 pp), and Spain (13 pp).
Elon Musk bought Twitter in late 2022 and later renamed it X.
Can people recognise disinformation?
Just over six in ten respondents (62%) say they feel confident in recognising disinformation when they encounter it. This includes 12 percent who are ‘very confident’ and 49 percent who are ‘somewhat confident’. In contrast, about one third (32%) say they are not confident.
Compared with the 2022 survey, this level of confidence fell by two percentage points across the EU and in many individual countries.
The confidence varies from 49 percent in Poland to 84 percent in Malta.
There is no strong correlation between perceived exposure to disinformation and confidence in recognising it.
Media literacy and fact-checking activities
Explaining perceptions is challengingas those may not be in line with their actual abilities or the real extent of the problem, said Konrad Bleyer-Simon, research fellow at the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom.
“The quality and extent of media literacy and fact-checking activities in the country may play a role here, but also certain psychological factors (reasons for under/overestimating one's capabilities and exposure),” he told Euronews Next.
Independent public service broadcasters
Bleyer-Simon also pointed out that the impact of disinformation is greater in societies with high degrees of polarisation, economic inequalities, low performance of the education system (as seen on PISA scores), low trust in institutions, as well as the extent to which politicians resort to confrontational and populist communication.
“Countries end up being more resilient to disinformation if they have strong and independent public service broadcasters, effective self-regulation for private media, high trust in the news, and a population that is more inclined to get its news from news media than from social media,” he said.
