Expert Forum Association, situated at str. Semilunei 7, apt 1, București, Sector 2, Romania (postal code 020797), asserts its commitment to ethical standards in addressing disinformation. As an organization dedicated to truth and accuracy, we align our work with the principles outlined in the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and The European Union’s 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation.
According to our work and reputation, we are part of the following communities:
-We have signed a memorandum of understanding with BROD, Bulgarian-Romanian Observatory of Digital Media part of EDMO
–IRI Beacon Brussels Community of Disinformation Analysts, working on covering sensitive issues in an objective manner like the war in Ukraine and the FIDESZ influence in diaspora with reputable NGO’s from all over Europe
-We are members of the Open Government Partnership to assist governments in increasing the transparency of public information and decisions
The principles we respect in our work are:
- We are an apolitical NGO with an apolitical staff committed to impartiality and objectivity, EFOR’s Code of Ethics upholds these principles in the following criteria: We maintain consistently high standards of evidence and judgment in our monitoring, irrespective of the claimant’s identity, ensuring objectivity, while we avoid disproportionate focus on any particular side, considering the reach and significance of chosen claims, with transparency in claim selection criteria.
- We are committed to transparency and accountability in our monitoring activity and the methodology used. We identify and provide the source of all significant evidence in our mentioned posts/articles, ensuring accessibility through relevant links for users interested in replicating our work.
-It’s crucial to note that our monitoring is limited to publicly available data through social platform APIs. We do not track personal pages, closed groups, or private conversations. Moreover, we offer links to all referenced articles/posts and provide data sheets on demand to journalists or researchers seeking to replicate our research, thereby maintaining transparency and facilitating independent verification.
-Our methodology is thoroughly explained in all projects including keyword selection, purpose of research/monitoring, limitations, sources used, tools, period, and so on. We also have on our website a description of our best practices regarding online monitoring.
- We uphold a transparent corrections policy, ensuring any changes to published reports are visibly indicated. When contacted via email or phone by users, journalists, or citizens, we assess raised concerns. While committed to addressing issues, we reserve the right to maintain our position in reports and may choose not to respond to every request.
- At EFOR, transparency is at the core of our values, extending to the funding that sustains our work. We are committed to providing a clear and comprehensive overview of our funding sources on our website. Visitors can easily access information detailing the organizations, or entities that support us financially.
Last, but not least we are committed to the principles outlined in the Strengthened Code Against Disinformation, as civil society we “oversight of political and issue advertising and constructively assist in the creation, implementation, and improvement of political or issue advertising policies and practices.” (Commitment 12) We produce monitoring reports and dashboards to assure data scrutiny, we have a dedicate website for political ads banipartide.ro, where we gathered the political monitoring efforts in the last 10 years.
We foster ongoing collaboration with individuals and organizations across the world to identify innovative solutions to monitoring efforts and to share our work and experience. We also develop media literacy and anti-disinformation materials that we share in our community of over 100 teachers called “The School For Democracy Network” with teachers from Romania and the Republic of Moldova.
EFOR CODE OF ETHICS IS AVAILABLE HERE