Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media
What is BROD?
The Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media aims to create a multinational, multi-stakeholder, and multidisciplinary regional hub for detection, analysis and combating disinformation circulating in Bulgaria and Romania. Such an observatory is urgently needed and very relevant in the region, which due to the poor media freedom and low citizen media and information literacy is highly prone to coordinated internal and external disinformation campaigns aiming at the EU. [+]
News and Events
Rig It! Win elections through manipulation in a new game from the creators of Bad News, Harmony Square, and Cat Park
Rig it! is co-created by GLOBSEC and DROG and develops skills for recognizing manipulative techniques used during election campaigns. [+]
Image credit: Council of Europe's CDMSI
CDMSI adopts policy document on national MIL strategies
In December 2025, the Council of Europe’s CDMSI adopted the policy document National Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Strategies: Practical Steps and Indicators, aiming to support CoE's member states in effectively responding to the transformations in the media and information ecosystem brought about by the digital era. [+]
European Digital Media Observatory hubs convened in Brussels to exchange best practices in fighting disinformation
The in-person event, held on December 5, focused on showcasing lessons learned and best practices specifically related to disinformation and media and information literacy. [+]
After SIIF 2025: the importance and vulnerabilities of information integrity were discussed at the Institut français de Bulgarie
In her opening speech, Her Excellency the Ambassador of France, Ms. Marie Dumoulin, recalled that disinformation today acts like a virus that weakens our societies by damaging the information environment dominated by social networks and facilitating external interference and stressed the need for a three-pronged response: detection, platform regulation, and media literacy. [+]
Photo: The organisers, University of Dubrovnik
17th Dubrovnik Media Days: The changing role of AI in journalism
At the 17th International Media Days conference in Dubrovnik the main topic was Generative Artificial Intelligence. [+]
Fb.com/NTCenter.bg
NTCenter (BROD) won the 2025 European Award for Innovative Teaching
The European Commission has awarded The NTCenter, one of the Bulgarian partners in the Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Media Observatory, with the 2025 European Innovative Teaching Award. [+]
Position Document regarding the National Defense Strategy of the Country 2025-2030
The President of Romania, Mr. Nicușor Dan, presented on Wednesday, November 12, the National Defense Strategy of the Country for the period 2025-2030: "Independence and Solidarity: Romania's Vision for a Changing World". The document is now in public consultation, to be endorsed in CSAT on November 24 and presented in Parliament on November 26.
Funky Citizens and the Center for Independent Journalism (CJI), organizations that are part of the Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Media Observatory, part of EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory), welcome this initiative and appreciate the inclusion of hybrid threats and media education in the strategic document. Therefore, we have chosen to position ourselves on topics in which both organizations have vast and complementary experience: combating disinformation and hybrid threats, as well as media education. We transmit this contribution starting from a common conviction: the greatest threat to Romania's security does not come only from the outside, but from our internal weaknesses. Corruption, deficient public institutions, citizens' lack of trust in the state, the absence of real civic participation mechanisms, the lack of media education and citizens' incapacity to critically evaluate information: these are the vulnerabilities that hybrid threats exploit and that erode the country's democratic resilience.
Andy Stoycheff's presentation at the Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025 | photo: Iglika Ivanova | license: CC4.0 by-sa
Disinformation and Teens: Polling Insights by NTCenter
The specially-designed training interventions with students are part of NTCenter’s media and information literacy activities under BROD – The Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Observatory, part of the EDMO network of regional hubs. [+]
BROD
BROD's Significant Contribution to the Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025
How can we counter disinformation? This was the topic of the lecture by Prof. Stephen Lewandowsky that kicked off the Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025 on November 5, 2025. The event was officially opened by Prof. Silvia Ilieva, Director of the GATE Institute, and Dr Keith Kiely, Science Coordinator of BROD. [+]
Project Kicks Off: BROD 2.0 starts Second Phase with Regional Workshop on Election Integrity in Southeast Europe
The second phase of the Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media (BROD 2.0) officially commenced on November 5, 2025, with a workshop dedicated to “Election Integrity in Southeast Europe,” marking a significant step in the regional effort to combat disinformation and enhance democratic resilience. [+]
BROD partner AFP represented at Myth Detector’s annual conference in Chișinău
On November 7-8, 2025, Myth Detector, a Georgian Fact-Checking organization, and Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Canal France International (CFI) Media Development Agency, Media Development Foundation (MDF), and StopFals (Moldova) organise the Eastern Partnership Fact-Checkers Annual Conference "Unveil the Truth" in Chișinău, Moldova. [+]
Maya Dimitrova, BNT, Veronika Dimitrova, Nova TV, Galia Prokopieva, Capital, discussing the dimensions and distribution of responsibility during the second panel. Moderator: Vesislava Antonova, UNWE
Credit: Iglika ivanova
Media Literacy as a national priority: Key outcomes from the 2025 national forum in Sofia
A central outcome of the event was the launch of an open appeal by the Media Literacy Coalition to political parties, the Council of Ministers, the National Assembly, and relevant parliamentary committees in Bulgaria. The appeal calls for making media literacy a national priority and urges for coordinated policy action and strategic planning to embed media literacy at all levels of education and civic life. [+]
Fact-Checking
Exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo on December 9, 2021.
AFP / ODD ANDERSEN
Fact-Checking
BROD is the unique European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO)-related hub covering Bulgaria and Romania.
The portal gives access to a continuous feed of fact-check articles aimed at debunking information in Bulgarian and Romanian and to dozens of archives.
Part of the initiative is the fact-checking leader Agence France-Presse (AFP) with its operations in both countries: Proveri for Bulgaria; and Verificat for Romania. Bulgarian National Television (BNT) is also part of the observatory with its new team of fact-checkers. On the Romanian side the hub’s fact-checking activity is also carried on by Factual, a platform launched by FUNKY CITIZENS. [+]
Media Literacy
Fact-checking and Verification
Welcome to BROD’s project module on fact-checking and verification, a course dedicated to mastering techniques for addressing disinformation. Over the next 25 minutes, we will delve into practical techniques and tips to help you verify the authenticity of both textual and multimedia material. [+]
A smartphone and a desktop screen showing reports about disinformation related to Brazilian presidential election, in Rio de Janeiro on August 29, 2022
AFP / MAURO PIMENTEL
BROD RESOURCES
Within the domain of media and information literacy (MIL), BROD is gradually adding the resources for educating teachers, librarians and journalists and delivered in Bulgarian and Romanian languages. [+]
Research
BROD will be bringing to you focused research reports on topics relevant to Bulgaria and Romania. You will be able to find reports in English in the Research section, as well as publications in Bulgarian and Romanian. In addition to its own outputs in research, BROD curates a collection of older studies of the BROD partners and other relevant reports.
MVI Methodology: Monitoring Framework for Code of Conduct on Disinformation
Research partners in Bulgaria and Romania and the European Observatory of Digital Media have created a first of its kind methodology (Materiality, Verifiability, Impact, or MVI) for monitoring the compliance of Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines with the EU’s strengthened Code of Conduct on Disinformation. This report is situated within the evolving regulatory landscape of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which, as of July 2025, elevated the Code from a voluntary commitment to a formal compliance benchmark. [+]
At the beginning of 2026: Prebunking narratives in Bulgaria
In 2026, Bulgaria will hold a series of elections - early parliamentary elections and regular presidential elections. The dates are not yet known, but from now on, we can say what narratives may emerge, and this initial list can serve as a step towards disarming them or, in other words, as a prebunking tool.
The narratives that we could expect to emerge during the year are often well-known. Here we use previous fact-checks and narrative reports, made mainly by EDMO and its hubs, and by other approved fact-checking organizations. [+]
Public Attitudes and Security Perceptions in Bulgaria: Resilience and Vulnerabilities in 2025
The latest data from GLOBSEC Trends 2025 for Bulgaria. [+]
A Multilingual, Large-Scale Study of the Interplay between LLM Safeguards, Personalisation, and Disinformation
Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate human-like disinformation, yet their ability to personalise such content across languages and demographics remains underexplored. This study presents the first large-scale, multilingual analysis of persona-targeted disinformation generation by LLMs. Employing a red teaming methodology, we prompt eight state-of-the-art LLMs with 324 false narratives and 150 demographic personas (combinations of country, generation, and political orientation) across four languages–English, Russian, Portuguese, and Hindi–resulting in AI-TRAITS, a comprehensive dataset of 1.6 million personalised disinformation texts. Results show that the use of even simple personalisation prompts significantly increases the likelihood of jailbreaks across all studied LLMs, up to 10 percentage points, and alters linguistic and rhetorical patterns that enhance narrative persuasiveness. Models such as Grok and GPT exhibited jailbreak rates and personalisation scores both exceeding 85%. These insights expose critical vulnerabilities in current state-of-the-art LLMs and offer a foundation for improving safety alignment and detection strategies in multilingual and cross-demographic contexts. [+]
The disinformation landscape in Bulgaria 2025
A new report about the disinformation landscape in Bulgaria [+]
Electoral Disinformation Ecosystems in Romania and its Diaspora: Cross-Platform Dynamics and Strategic Narratives during the 2024–2025 Electoral Cycle
This report investigates the disinformation landscape across X, TikTok, and Facebook during Romania's super 2024–2025 electoral cycle, with particular attention to the role played by Romanian diaspora communities, and a particular focus on those based in Italy. [+]
GLOBSEC Trends 2025: Ready for a New Era?
The Centre for Democracy & Resilience at GLOBSEC introduces the 10th edition of its annual public opinion report, GLOBSEC Trends 2025. Based on polling conducted in nine Central and Eastern European countries – Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia – this year’s edition offers a comprehensive picture of how societies in the region view global powers, security threats, democracy, and resilience. [+]
Public Attitudes in Romania: Staying in the West With Some Doubts
Romanian society is very supportive of the country’s place in the Western alliance while expressing some doubts about the policies of the EU and NATO. Support for Romania’s membership in these institutions fell during the COVID-years but recovered swiftly after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. [+]
Sebastien BOZON / AFP)
“One ‘thank you’ note can keep you motivated for months”
Disinformation isn’t just a problem in Bulgaria and Romania -it’s shaping politics, fueling public distrust, and making democracy feel like a rigged game. Both countries have long struggled with corruption scandals and political instability, but now they’re also dealing with an avalanche of misinformation, much of it pushed by foreign actors like Russia. [+]
The relationship with information and media consumption habits of children and young people in Romania
The end of 2024 has shown once again how important it is for Romanian citizens to have the skills to distinguish between facts and opinions, to understand the workings of social media, the techniques of persuasion, to be aware of the persuasive role influencers play in public communication, and to be able to do minimal checks on the information that reaches them. For the younger generation, school is the place to teach them all these things. [+]
Distorted Realities: Exposing Malign Influence in Bulgarian Online Discourse. Country Report
This report presents the results from research activities implemented by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) as part of the Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media (BROD). It examines the spread of pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives in Bulgarian online media and Telegram channels in 2024, focusing on three key topics of social importance: 1) Bulgarian ethnic minorities in Ukraine, 2) the European Green Deal (EGD), and climate change in general, and 3) the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination in general. [+]
A semi-automated approach for discovery of politically exposed persons in research data: alternative approaches
Two pipelines could be employed to facilitate research data analysis activities. (part II) [+]
Code of Practice on Disinformation in Romania: A Synthesis of SNSPA Research
A study done in September 2024 by the SNSPA research team has taken an in-depth look at how major digital platforms—Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok—are implementing the EU’s revised Code of Practice on Disinformation in Romania. [+]
The Schengen Debate: How Disinformation Drives Euroscepticism
Researchers from SNSPA (Romania) and NTCenter (Bulgaria) studied how the Schengen debate in both countries is affected by disinformation and is driving eurosceptic attitudes. [+]
BROD Observational Snapshot Romanian Presidential Elections Controversy – The View from Facebook December 8th-15th, 2024
This analysis focuses on the narratives discovered in over 11,000 available Facebook posts accessed through Meta’s content library surrounding Presidential candidate Călin Georgescu, between December 8-15, 2024. The discourse reveals an increasingly polarized landscape involving both supporters and detractors, shaped by key themes and allegations. [+]
A semi-automated approach for discovery of politically exposed persons in research data: initial experiments
The technical partener of BROD, ONTO, along with Romanian (SNSPA) and Bulgarian (CSD) parteners developed a pipeline to automatically identify politcally exposed persons (PEP). [+]
Disinformation about Bulgaria and Romania’s accession to the Schengen Area fuels Eurosceptic attitudes and distrust in the media
The accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen Area has been a subject of controversy and public debate in the last years, with full access granted as of today, December 12th, 2024. The topic was not spared of many disinformation narratives, circulating in all types of media, in both countries. [+]
Generational Perspectives on Media Consumption in Romania
This research explores how individuals engage with news and information, focusing on aspects such as preferred sources of news, formats, and exposure habits within the contemporary media landscape. [+]
BROD Observational Snapshot: Romanian Presidential Elections Controversy – The View from Facebook December 1-8th, 2024
This report provides an overview of the key conversation drivers and dynamics from available Facebook data sourced through the Meta Content Library for the period Dec 1-8, 2024. This past week has been pivotal in Romanian politics. Reports from Romanian intelligence services have suggested coordinated efforts to influence the outcome of the first round of the presidential elections. [+]
GLOBSEC REPORT: Public Attitudes in Bulgaria - a Severe Lack of Trust
Not all of Bulgarian society has fully embraced the country’s place in the West yet, but recent GLOBSEC Trends polls indicate that the country is certainly warming up to the EU and NATO. Between 2020 and 2024, Bulgarians’ support for EU membership improved by 7 percentage points, while backing for NATO increased by 15 percentage points. The picture is not perfect, as 73% of Bulgarians agreed with the ‘EU dictate’ narrative in 2024, indicating that concerns about the European Union’s role in Bulgaria remain prevalent. [+]
This project has received funding from the European Union under Contract number: 101083730 — BROD. This document reflects the views only of the independent Consortium, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained herein.
REVISING PRIORITIES: HOW CAN WE MOST EFFECTIVELY BALANCE DISINFORMATION NARRATIVES AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITHIN EU MEDIA POLICY?
The paper offers a perspective on the growing challenge of balancing disinformation
narratives and freedom of expression within European Union (EU) media policy. It
claims that within current approaches such a balance cannot be achieved and that a
serious look at the drivers of media consumption trends and EU media policies on
disinformation is required. Within the current frame of reference there is a need to
carefully consider what we mean by freedom of expression. This paper argues that one
aspect to consider is how current EU media policy, online media consumption and
monetisation models create a space where attention-grabbing and emotionally charged
content is favoured. This viewpoint might shed light on how these trends may potentially
be overshadowing important but less attention-grabbing voices or perspectives. The
article contends that one possible approach would be policies which encourage
prioritising and investing in not-for-profit and participatory media systems built on
community ownership and grassroots input.
Key words: disinformation, freedom of expression, EU, media policy [+]
Response Rating Distribution Comparison
Evaluating VLOP and VLOSE Implementation of the Strengthened EU Code of Practice on Disinformation in Bulgaria
In June of 2022, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, Twitter (rebranded as X) and a selection of advertising industry companies all signed up to the strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation (European Commission, 2022). One of the goals of this strengthened version of the code was to empower the industry to adhere to self-regulatory standards in order to combat disinformation. The strengthened code also claims to set a more ambitious set of commitments and measures aimed at combating disinformation online.
Our aim here is to offer an assessment or evaluation of the implementation of the 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation (CoP) by these companies in Bulgaria. Very little information exists on the implementation of the strengthened Code of Practice when it comes to Bulgaria by Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOP and VLOSE) and this is a country which is particularly vulnerable to disinformation narratives. [+]
The Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory on Disinformation (BROD): a Bridge to the Future
The European Union is currently facing multiple crises, not restricted to but including the COVID‑19 pandemic, the conflict in Ukraine, ecological and energy-related challenges, immigration pressures, and internal social and political issues. However, Europe and the EU are also defined by their know-how, culture, multilingualism, and contributions to the evolution of Western civilisation, a legacy that should be honoured and progressed to meet contemporary challenges. Our responsibility and hope lie in transforming society sustainably and intelligently in order to respond to anticipated and unanticipated changes. One possible instrument to do so is through European media observatories like the European Media Observatory (EDMO), which can serve as hubs for this purpose. The Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory on Disinformation (BROD) is one of the hubs collaborating with EDMO, which brings together journalists, fact-checkers, public figures, and academic researchers to work towards a society better prepared to tackle disinformation. This paper provides a broad overview of its setup and discusses some of the current challenges in monitoring the progress in counteracting disinformation. [+]
Evaluating the Implementation of the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation in Romania
In Romania, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) was recently designated as the Digital Services Coordinator, responsible for overseeing and ensuring compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). ANCOM has also become part of the European Board for Digital Services, collaborating with other national coordinators, conducting joint investigations, issuing opinions and recommendations, and contributing to developing and implementing guidelines and reports related to the DSA. [+]
