According to EDMO's monthly report, of the 1,433 articles intercepted by the 33 organizations that make up the fact-checking network, 164 (11%) focused on immigration-related disinformation and 119 (8%) on climate change-related disinformation.

Furthermore, 84 (6%) were disinformation related to the war in Ukraine, 69 (5%) were about the European Union (EU), 59 (4%) were related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, 50 (3%) were about LGBT+ and gender issues, and 41 (3%) were disinformation about COVID-19.

"The most targeted topic by disinformation in July was immigration, which increased 5% compared to June," breaking a record since EDMO began monitoring in October 2023.

According to the observatory, Portugal contributed to the increase in disinformation about immigration in July, highlighting the false narrative that immigrants have priority in school enrolment over Portuguese nationals.

Fake news about climate change also increased by 3% in July compared to the previous month, becoming the second most targeted topic.

Disinformation about the war in Ukraine, in third place, fell to a lower level compared to June, while false and misleading information about LGBT+ and gender issues increased by 2%.

In July, the percentage of fake news stories using content generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) remained stable, accounting for 10% (152) of the total.