Aude Favre

Aude is providing citizens with new roles to dismantle misinformation flow and transferring journalist expertise to young people to become critical readers by reducing the sharing of fake news, developing credible content, and undermining the economics of misinformation.

Today, misinformation is no longer limited to a few viral fake news items: it has become a systemic phenomenon, amplified by social media and fueled by a loss of bearings in the face of the mass of available information. Young people, particularly exposed, and citizens in general, often lack the tools necessary to assess the credibility of the content they consume and share. This confusion is rooted in a lack of understanding of journalistic codes, a feeling of exclusion from traditional media, and growing mistrust of institutions. This climate undermines collective trust, reinforces social divides, and weakens citizens’ ability to make informed decisions.

To address this challenge, Aude relies on two powerful levers: education and citizen activation. Through FakeOff!, she works in schools to transmit to young people the reflexes and methods of journalists, using an active and participatory approach. She also mobilizes willing citizens within the collaborative newsroom CitizenFacts, training them in investigation and verification practices. By bringing citizens behind the scenes of news production, Aude is creating a new common culture of journalism, inclusive and engaged, where everyone can contribute to dismantling the mechanisms of misinformation.

The phenomenon of fake news is growing rapidly in our hyperconnected societies, representing a major threat to democracy and social cohesion. In France, 53% of citizens are exposed to it each week, and nearly 30% have already unknowingly shared false information (IFOP, 2022). A MIT study revealed that fake news is 70% more likely to be shared than verified information, and spreads six times faster.

This explosion is explained by a deep transformation of the informational landscape: where professional journalism once constituted a centralized, regulated, and responsible source of information, social networks have allowed everyone to become a content producer, without any filter or verification. The algorithms of these platforms, optimized to maximize engagement, favor sensationalist or polarizing content, regardless of its truthfulness. Social media platforms have no economic incentive to prioritize truth: their financial model is based on user engagement and attention capture, not accuracy. Content creators who spread false but eye-catching narratives often earn substantial advertising revenue – some high-profile disinformation actors reportedly generate hundreds of thousands of euros in monthly income by monetizing conspiracy theories and driving traffic through ads (i.e for example, Jim Hoft — founder of the American website The Gateway Pundit, known for spreading conspiracy theories and false information — reportedly generated around €3.1 million in revenue, primarily through advertising). Fake news then becomes a powerful tool for disinformation, often spread for ideological or financial motives, without their authors ever being held accountable, creating a climate of total impunity.

Information is increasingly used as a weapon. In France, the agency Viginum reports dismantling foreign influence operations — especially from Russia — on a weekly basis. These campaigns aim to destabilize democracies by manipulating public opinion through false narratives.

The consequences are alarming: they accentuate the fragmentation of the public space, locking each person into digital “filter bubbles” where opinions radicalize. They manipulate perceptions on crucial topics such as health, migration, or elections, weaken institutions, and feed widespread mistrust — for example, nearly 49% of French people now believe that experts lie to serve hidden interests (Fondation Jean-Jaurès, 2022). Meanwhile, the journalistic sector is weakening: investigative journalism, which takes months of research and reaches only a few thousand people, cannot compete with the viral reach of fabricated stories that spread to millions in hours.

Faced with this wave, our societies are poorly prepared: the majority of citizens have not been trained to think critically in an environment saturated with information, and the mechanisms to curb disinformation remain largely insufficient — because they were simply not necessary before.

To face the growing scale of fake news, massive misinformation and the loss of informational bearings among a large portion of the population unequipped to respond to these challenges, Aude Favre has developed an original strategy based on two complementary levers. On one hand, media literacy with Fake Off!, deployed among young people and the adults who influence them (teachers, mentors, parents, influencers), strengthens critical thinking from an early age. On the other, CitizenFacts relies on collaborative citizen journalism focused on fact-checking, which empowers individuals to produce verified and credible information themselves, while raising awareness of how disinformation is created.

Fake Off! relies on a network of over 80 professional journalists to offer participatory educational workshops for young people, both in and outside school. These sessions allow participants to concretely discover the journalist’s profession, explore the behind-the-scenes of news production and analyze mechanisms of media manipulation. By placing them in active situations — through short or long cycles, collaborative video productions, podcasts or newsroom simulations — young people become fact-checkers themselves. This posture, which engages them in rigorous work of research, verification and fact hierarchy, fosters the development of their critical thinking. By confronting professional journalism methods, they learn to question the reliability of sources, detect bias, and adopt a distanced stance toward the information flow.

In parallel, the association trains adult mentors — teachers, youth workers, social workers, librarians, elected officials — so they can in turn pass on these critical analysis skills and guide young people in responsible and informed information usage.

Since 2024, Fake Off! has also trained influencers (85 last year), aware of their responsibility in information circulation. By providing them with journalism tools and fact-checking reflexes, Fake Off! enables them to produce more rigorous content, limit the unintentional spread of fake news, and embody a new generation of responsible content creators, capable of acting as media literacy relays to their communities.

FakeOff! has established itself as a major reference for media education in France, receiving the highest national recognition with accreditation from the Ministry of Education. Present in 24 of the 36 metropolitan education districts as well as overseas territories such as Réunion and French Polynesia, the association deploys wide-ranging and diversified activities. In 2024, FakeOff! led 1,594 workshops in 180 cities, reaching over 16,285 students, 2,370 out-of-school youth, and 229 educators. Since 2019, nearly 55,000 young people and 2,200 adult mentors have been trained through 5,300 workshops. Working in schools, social centers and cultural institutions, FakeOff! reaches a wide audience aged 10 to 25, helping develop critical thinking and civic skills in an entire generation.

Fake Off!’s impact is measured over time through surveys sent to students and teachers, allowing evaluation of behavior changes regarding information. These data show that young people no longer passively consume the content they receive: they gradually adopt an active posture. The workshops equip them to detect and deconstruct fake news, but go far beyond simple defense. By putting them in the position of content creators — through investigations, podcasts, reports — Fake Off! values their ability to create knowledge and build their own view of the world. One of the most striking effects of this pedagogy is the initiation to methodical doubt: young people learn to question, verify, and suspend judgment before accepting information. This doubt, far from feeding distrust, becomes an essential critical skill in today’s fast-moving, complex media world. Through its local anchoring, active pedagogy, and strong link with the journalism world, Fake Off! helps build a shared culture of vigilance, analysis and engagement in the face of disinformation.

To address the problem of fake news and citizens’ inability to respond to it, Aude also created CitizenFact, a collaborative journalism project based on an engaged community of nearly 2,000 citizens taking on a new role in information production and fact-checking. This “citizen newsroom” allows everyone to actively participate in collective investigations to verify and decipher information, thereby strengthening critical thinking and restoring trust in media.

In concrete terms, CitizenFact functions somewhat like Slack: citizens suggest topics to investigate with, and then one is selected based on its relevance. Tasks are then distributed among participants — for instance, who will investigate someone’s background or business model — moderators help structure and filter the work, and a journalist oversees the entire process. A large group of participants contributes lightly, while a smaller core group dives deeper into research and fact-checking. This collaborative workflow enables the production of thorough, credible investigations.

The impact of CitizenFact is concrete and growing. What began as a simple community on a Discord server in 2019, gathering citizens around investigations against disinformation, has turned into a structured community of nearly 2,000 citizens conducting weekly investigations, featured in a five-episode documentary series broadcast on ARTE in 2024, Europe’s leading cultural channel. Thanks to significant funding from a Swiss foundation dedicated to media literacy, CitizenFact is now becoming an online platform expanding collaborative journalism to more citizens and journalists to jointly create rigorous investigations. CitizenFact offers a powerful tool to dismantle fake news, with striking results: identifying brands unintentionally funding conspiracy sites, exposing anti-abortion activists infiltrating hospitals leading to contract terminations and a €3 million loss, or ostracizing a medical influencer spreading deadly misinformation. Through these actions, CitizenFact embodies a citizen movement renewing how information is produced and verified.

These two non-profit initiatives, FakeOff! and CitizenFact, strengthen young people’s and citizens’ critical thinking toward the information they receive. By transforming passive readers into active actors in information verification and production, FakeOff! and CitizenFact foster the emergence of more credible sources and help reduce the spread of fake news. They also revalue the journalism profession by promoting rigorous fact-checking methods and directly confronting disinformation spreaders. Through these actions, they contribute to a lasting shift in media behaviors, reducing the supply and impact of fake news in society.

To strengthen its impact in the face of growing informational drift, Fake Off! is rolling out an ambitious scaling strategy. The association leverages its national accreditation to consolidate its presence in France and aims for uniform media literacy coverage, including in rural areas, often underserved and particularly vulnerable to polarization. It is also developing a strong European dynamic, with several transnational projects supported by the European Union, addressing in particular the links between disinformation, democracy and gender equality. At the same time, it is building a network of media literacy actors to share resources, map underserved areas, and build lasting alliances. This scale-up also involves diversifying the target audiences, with trainings adapted for seniors and people with disabilities. Fake Off! also aims to massively develop its training programs for influencers, in partnership with unions and agencies, to make them critical relays within their communities.

CitizenFacts is entering a new phase of large-scale development with the creation of a dedicated collaborative journalism app. This innovative platform will make it possible to structure and professionalize investigations conducted by citizens, in close collaboration with professional journalists who ensure methodological rigor. The objective: to democratize access to investigative work, strengthen the credibility of citizen journalism, and build a hybrid model in which media professionals and citizens co-construct information. With the support of a Swiss foundation and the interest of several European public services in deploying local versions, CitizenFacts aims to become, within five years, the leading tool for a new generation of open, rigorous, and committed investigations.

Born in 1983 in Reims in a peaceful environment, Aude developed a deep desire to get involved from a very young age and discover the journalism when she was young.

Curious, persistent, and idealistic, she entered the field of journalism with the intuition that information could be a lever for emancipation. After an initial apprenticeship with a prominent TV channel, I-Télé, she worked in various newsrooms and gradually refined her vision of journalism as a tool for the common good. But it was in 2015, following the terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo—just next door to her own office—that her commitment as a journalist took on new meaning. Deeply shaken by the event, she was equally struck by how quickly conspiracy theories spread across social media. This shock became a turning point. Aude then decided to make the fight against disinformation the core of her professional mission.

Rather than sticking to traditional formats, she chose to innovate and create new modes of storytelling. In 2016, she launched WTFake, a YouTube channel where she unpacks fake news with precision, humor, and pedagogy. This media outlet, which now has over 125,000 subscribers, allows her to reach a young audience, make fact-checking accessible, and build a direct relationship with citizens. Building on this success, she co-founded Fake Off, a media literacy program in schools, convinced that young people—often the primary targets of disinformation—must be supported in developing critical thinking skills.

In 2020, she took her work a step further by founding CitizenFacts, the first citizen newsroom dedicated to verifying information, bringing together nearly 1,800 participants from various French-speaking countries. This pioneering initiative combines participatory journalism, citizen empowerment, and educational innovation.

Today, Aude Favre is also recognized in France for the quality of her journalistic investigations (broadcast on renowned French television programs such as Zone Interdite, Spécial Investigation, or Complément d’Enquête), as well as for her bold vision of journalism and her determination to promote, through Fake Off and CitizenFacts, the development of critical thinking among the population.