News

At Learn to Check, we have expanded our ongoing work to mitigate the effects of disinformation with new media and information literacy projects and initiatives.

In 2025, we have seen that disinformation has intensified, increasing its reach to manipulate and harm wider audiences; it has mutated its forms and strategies to be more effective in its metamorphosis. And it continues to take hold. Therefore, at Learn to Check, we have expanded our ongoing work with new media and information literacy (MIL) projects and initiatives. We have done so to respond to each disinformation attack with a new, tailored educational and critical thinking project to mitigate this damage. It has been a collaborative effort, with new alliances of institutions, organizations, and individuals who have placed their trust in the Learn to Check brand, and with all those who have accompanied us over these past seven years. Here’s a summary of what 2025 brought and what 2026 has in store, with three new projects starting early in the year.

Disinformation doesn’t just affect young people; we are all vulnerable. To combat it, UNESCO proposes that media and information literacy (MIL) must be directed at everyone and provided continuously throughout life. At Learn to Check, we’ve taken up this challenge and developed the international project Media and Information Literacy Community Connections (MILCC) in collaboration with the University Institute of Lisbon and Dublin City University. This innovative project, which in Spain has received support from the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Society for Scientific Documentation and Information (SEDIC), has trained teams from more than 50 libraries across Spain in media and information literacy (MIL) and guided them in preparing awareness-raising activities about the effects of disinformation and the use of verification tools for their communities. The result has been the creation of diverse, original, well-founded activities for all types of audiences. This successful initiative was presented at the XII National Congress of Public Libraries in Granada, where our president, Nereida Carrillo, emphasized to more than 500 guests the importance of libraries as “the net menders of the public sphere: those women of the sea in Galicia who mend the nets to repair the social bonds damaged by disinformation, polarization, and hatred.” Libraries are key allies because we go through school, but we return to libraries.

Public actions and policies against disinformation must be guided by scientific evidence. But what is most effective for being better informed? Consuming fact-checking content, learning about media literacy, or ceasing to avoid the news—37% avoid the news, as the Digital News Report indicates—and instead, seeking more information from the media? To find out, we participated in a scientific study analyzing how different strategies can influence public attitudes toward disinformation. In this project, called WHAT-IF, funded by the European Horizon program, we collaborated with researchers from the London Social Media Observatory and the University of Amsterdam, as well as with Maldita.es. The experiment involved 250 people, and we will share the results with you soon.

Disinformation affects us all. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025, it is the greatest short-term global risk. Therefore, it is essential to be prepared. For this reason, Learn to Check provides training for Catalan university students as part of a project promoted by Catalunya International, the European Parliament Office in Barcelona, ​​and the European Commission Representation. During the first term, the team delivered 17 workshops at leading universities such as the University of Lleida (UdL), the University of Barcelona (UB), the URL (Rafael La Rioja University), the University of Vic (UVic), Abat Oliba University, and the IBEI (Institute of Business and Innovation). Along the same lines, we also partnered with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) to launch the ‘Online Course on Fact-Checking and Fake News,’ a specialized training program with micro-credentials aimed at professionals and the general public. This course will be offered again in 2026, and registration is now open.

Also in 2025, we began a collaboration with the Barcelona City Council to foster critical thinking among young people and build resilience against disinformation. In this regard, Learn to Check has taken on the technical secretariat for the Government Measure “Promoting Critical Thinking and Raising Awareness about Disinformation (Fake News) among Children, Adolescents, and Young People in the City – 2026-2030,” promoted by the Barcelona City Council. This innovative measure aims to position Barcelona at the forefront of the fight against disinformation and will be presented in 2026.

Among the strategies of disinformation and hate speech are polarization and social division between “them” and “us,” where consensus is impossible. In response to the culture of hate and division, at Learn to Check we developed the intergenerational workshop project “What I Know About Europe. And You, What Do You Know?”, which in its first edition trained more than 500 people in 30 workshops across 15 municipalities in the province of Barcelona, ​​in collaboration with the Barcelona Provincial Council and the European Commission Representation. The initiative fostered dialogue between young people and older adults, combining digital literacy, critical thinking, and knowledge about European institutions. Following its success, we are now carrying out the second edition of this initiative, this time in the libraries of the Barcelona Library Network.

False information has very real and negative effects on people’s lives, and it is important to make this visible to generate empathy and awareness. For this reason, Learn to Check collaborates with EFE Verifica on the project “Fake News, Real Victims.” The initiative combines the publication of reports featuring testimonies from victims in different countries with the organization of media literacy workshops for vulnerable communities, led by Learn to Check. The project has already launched two training sessions: one in Aldaia, a town in the Valencian Community and one of the areas hardest hit by the DANA storm, where participants learned about disinformation and debunked some of the hoaxes that emerged after the devastating floods. The other took place in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​where participants from diverse faiths and cultures were addressed in a workshop on disinformation that incites religious hatred.

From the beginning, Learn to Check has championed games as a pedagogical tool. Following this philosophy, we launched the “Get to Know the European Parliament” project in collaboration with the European Parliament Office in Barcelona. This educational initiative allowed 500 secondary and high school students in Catalonia to experience how European democracy works through a role-playing game. Through participatory workshops, students took on the role of Members of the European Parliament and recreated the actual legislative process, fostering critical thinking, reflection on disinformation, and an understanding of European institutions. Another fun and educational activity we organized in 2025, this time for the third consecutive year, was the Europe Day Disinformation Scavenger Hunt, which trained more than 400 primary and secondary school students from the four Catalan provinces. Promoted by the European Commission and the Europe Direct centers, the initiative fostered critical thinking and knowledge about Europe through practical challenges.

One of the defining elements of Learn to Check is its commitment to a more equal, just, and diverse society in which the human rights of all are respected. With this conviction, we prepared the report “Social Rights in Times of Disinformation” for the Catalan Third Sector Social Entities Roundtable, which analyzes the impact of misinformation on third sector social organizations and vulnerable groups. The study highlights how disinformation erodes fundamental rights, fuels stigma, and hinders the work of social organizations, in addition to weakening democratic trust.

We are closing the year very satisfied. We have trained more than 6,000 people of all ages through our training sessions, workshops, conferences, escape rooms, and games. This surpasses the 22,000 people trained directly since our first workshops in 2018. This success would not be possible without our formidable team of trainers, many of whom are also researchers and professors at various Spanish universities, and our network of partner organizations, parent-teacher associations, educational centers, and individuals who trust Learn to Check year after year. Thank you for your trust!

The coming year, 2026, is full of new projects that will keep us busy and highly motivated. We’ll give you more details very soon. In the meantime, remember that you can book our training courses, workshops, and escape rooms to train students, teachers, librarians, professionals, associations, and more. Check out our catalog and contact us for more information. Don’t forget to follow us on Linkedin, TikTok, and Instagram, and subscribe to our newsletter to receive exclusive information and materials.