{"id":12862,"date":"2026-06-29T09:39:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T08:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=12862"},"modified":"2026-06-29T17:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:11:25","slug":"see-checks-regional-poll-what-do-we-believe-share-and-verify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/29\/see-checks-regional-poll-what-do-we-believe-share-and-verify\/","title":{"rendered":"SEE Check\u2019s regional poll: What do we believe, share and verify?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Three in Four People in the Western Balkans Believe a Secret Group Controls the World: A regional survey by SEE Check Network reveals the deep roots of conspiracy thinking and disinformation narratives in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 75% of people across four Western Balkan countries agree that “a small group of powerful people is responsible for all major world events.”<\/em> That is the most striking finding of a landmark public opinion survey conducted by the SEE Check network, covering 4,071 respondents in four Western Balkans countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conspiracy Landscape: What People Believe<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The poll was conducted in December 2025 and tested 9 statements conveying disinformation narratives observed by SEE Check members over the years; information and verification habits of the respondents, as well as their perception and familiarity with the fact-checking newsrooms active in their countries. The results paint a detailed picture of how disinformation narratives have taken hold in a region already navigating fragile democratic institutions, high social media exposure, and a complex geopolitical landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The belief that “a secret group controls world events” was by far the most widely held, with nearly 75% agreement across the four countries, ranging from 71% in Albania to nearly 80% in Bosnia and Herzegovina. More than half of all respondents (56%) said they completely<\/em> agree, making this not just the most widespread, but also the most intensely held belief of all the tested statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The belief that that secretive global elites are trying to \u201cdepopulate\u201d the Earth is held by 60.6% polled in all four countries. Majority of the poll participants (53%) also believe the antivaccination narrative about vaccines as \u201cmore dangerous than beneficial”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belief in the antimigration conspiracy, portraying migration from African and Asian countries as a deliberate plan to change the ethnic composition of European countries, was endorsed by a slim majority of 50.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only narrative that failed to reach majority support was climate change denial – a relatively new type of disinformation narrative observed by SEE Check members in the past few years.  However, the claim that climate change is not real still reached 38.1% agreement, possibly indicating that the popularity of the narrative could be expected to grow in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the geopolitical side, the survey asked respondents to rate the extent to which Russia’s armed actions in Ukraine are justified. Across the region, 39% consider them justified to some degree, while 53% consider them unjustified. Serbia records by far the highest level of justification (58%), while Albania registers the lowest (23%). In BiH, the agreement was recorded at 32% and in Montenegro at 42%. This question produced the largest cross-country differences in responses, with a 35 percentage point gap between Albania and Serbia and around 10 percentage points separating each country from the next in the ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attitudes toward the narratives targeting the EU also reveal significant disinformation penetration. About 60% of respondents agree that the EU sanctions against Russia has had t he effect of weakening the EU itself, while 54% agree that censorship of free speech is on the increase in the European Union. A little over 50% agrees that EU integration is \u201ca threat to traditional family values”. All these narratives were observed to be actively amplified by pro-Kremlin media and domestic political actors across the region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where people get their news and how they feel about checking it<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The respondents show heavy inclinations to get their news on social media, with Facebook still dominating other platforms. Instagram, YouTube and TikTok follow, but right after these public platforms come messaging apps Viber and WhatsApp. However, verification habits are weak – only a minority of respondents say they always or often verify news before sharing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey also asked respondents to rate local SEE Check member organisations: Faktoje (Albania), Raskrinkavanje.ba (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Raskrinkavanje.me (Montenegro), and FakeNews Traga\u010d \/ Raskrikavanje (Serbia). While respondents who are familiar with these organisations tend to rate them positively, a large proportion has either not heard of them, or is not familiar enough with their work to be able to assess its quality. This is particularly in older age groups and among respondents with elementary education – two demographics that have demonstrated high vulnerability to disinformation. Awareness of fact-checkers is higher in urban areas and among younger respondents. This points to a structural challenge: fact-checkers in the region are reaching audiences that are already comparatively more media-literate, while remaining less visible to the demographics most at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combination of audiences\u2019 high reliance on social media for information, as well as significant reliance of semi-private channels like messaging apps, paired with low frequency of individual verification of news veracity and low awareness of fact-checking as a reliable verification resource creates a fertile environment for misinformation to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full survey report on <\/strong>this link<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Three in Four People in the Western Balkans Believe a Secret Group Controls the World: A regional survey by SEE Check Network reveals the deep roots of conspiracy thinking and disinformation narratives in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Nearly 75% of people across four Western Balkan countries agree that “a small group of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,37,29,97,13,35,28],"class_list":["post-12862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-albania","tag-bosnia-and-herzegovina","tag-croatia","tag-disinformation","tag-journalism","tag-montenegro","tag-serbia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12862"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12875,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12862\/revisions\/12875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}