Greece Ranks Lowest in EU for Reported Exposure to Online Misinformation, Eurostat Data Shows
Greece recorded the lowest rate of exposure to misinformation online in the European Union in 2025, according to freshly published Eurostat data, placing the country at the bottom of a ranking that otherwise shows more than half of Europeans encountering doubtful or false content on the internet. The Greek rate stood at 32.4 percent, sharply below the EU-wide average of 55.9 percent, and notably lower than every other member state. The Eurostat indicator, which measures people aged 16 to 74 who said they had seen untrue or doubtful information on internet news sites or social media platforms during the previous three months, positions Greece as an outlier in the bloc’s digital information landscape. The data, released as part of Eurostat’s annual survey on information and communication technology use, does not measure the actual volume of false material circulating in any given country, but rather the share of users who report having encountered content they personally judged to be untrue or dubious. This distinction is critical, as it suggests that reported exposure is shaped not only by the prevalence of misinformation but also by how frequently people go online, which platforms they use, and how critically they assess the content that appears before them. Greece’s rate, in other words, reflects a combination of digital behavior and user perception, not an objective measure of the truthfulness of the national information environment. The findings come at a time when European institutions are increasingly concerned about disinformation, foreign interference, and the growing difficulty of recognizing manipulated media, particularly as artificial intelligence tools make it easier to fabricate realistic text, images, audio, and video.
No other member state reported a lower share than Greece, making the country the clear bottom-ranked nation on this indicator within the EU. Italy posted the second-lowest rate at 43 percent, followed by Romania at 44.4 percent and Bulgaria at 45.5 percent, all of which remain substantially above Greece. At the opposite end of the scale, Ireland recorded the highest share of reported exposure, with 82.8 percent of internet users saying they had come across misinformation, followed closely by the Netherlands at 77 percent, Denmark at 75.7 percent, Sweden at 71.5 percent, and Finland at 69.5 percent. These northern and western European countries, which often rank highly on digital trust and media literacy indices, nevertheless report much greater encounters with false or doubtful information, suggesting that awareness and willingness to label content as misleading may play a role in how the survey is answered. In countries where public discourse around disinformation is more prominent, users may be more likely to recognize and report having seen questionable material, while in Greece, lower levels of explicit exposure could stem from different news consumption routines, platform preferences, or a general tendency to scroll past suspicious content without labeling it as misinformation. The Eurostat data do not offer a definitive explanation for the remarkable divergence between Greece and other member states, but they add Greece to a complex European picture in which low reported exposure does not automatically translate into a healthier information ecosystem. The Irish figure, at more than 82 percent, means that more than eight in ten internet users in Ireland reported seeing false or doubtful content in a three-month window, while in Greece fewer than one in three did the same, a gap of more than fifty percentage points that demands closer examination rather than simple celebration.
Greece’s surprisingly low reported exposure is particularly notable because the country’s information habits have been undergoing a rapid transformation. A 2025 Eurobarometer survey found that social media has overtaken television as the main source of information for Greeks, with 56 percent of respondents saying they use social platforms to keep up with political and social current affairs. This shift places Greece among the European countries where social media dominates news consumption, a trend that is generally associated with higher exposure to misinformation rather than lower. The fact that Greeks are spending significant time on social platforms while still reporting the EU’s lowest encounter rate with false information raises questions about what Eurostat’s indicator actually captures. It is possible that Greek users encounter misinformation at rates similar to other Europeans but do not consciously identify it as doubtful, either because they trust the sources they follow, because they have become desensitized to certain types of misleading content, or because the platforms they use present fabricated material in ways that appear indistinguishable from legitimate news. Alternatively, Greek internet users may be more likely to see content that is untrue but aligned with their existing beliefs, making it less likely to be perceived as doubtful. The survey relies entirely on self-reporting, so it captures subjective awareness rather than objective reality, and cultural differences in how people understand terms like “untrue” or “doubtful” can significantly influence results. Whatever the cause, Greece’s position at the bottom of the EU ranking should be interpreted with caution, since low reported exposure can coexist with high levels of misinformation circulation if users are unable or unwilling to recognize the material as problematic.
The broader European context adds another layer of urgency to these findings, as the expansion of generative artificial intelligence is making fabricated content increasingly difficult to distinguish from genuine reporting. Eurostat’s indicator does not identify whether the questionable material encountered by respondents was created with artificial intelligence, but the data arrive as the use of AI tools accelerates across the bloc. The European Union has responded with the Artificial Intelligence Act, a wide-ranging legal framework designed to regulate AI systems based on their risk and to impose transparency obligations on certain applications. According to separate Eurostat figures, 32.7 percent of Europeans aged 16 to 74 reported using generative AI tools in 2025, and among those aged 16 to 24, the share leapt to 63.8 percent. These tools can generate realistic text, images, and audio in seconds, enabling misinformation to be produced at scale and with a degree of polish that was previously impossible. A single user can create a convincing fake news article, a fabricated photograph of a political figure, or an audio recording mimicking a known voice, then circulate it across social networks before fact-checkers have any chance to respond. The European Union’s digital policy efforts, including the Code of Practice on Disinformation and the Digital Services Act, have focused on platform accountability and transparency, but the rise of generative AI has outpaced many of these measures, leading to growing calls for stronger safeguards such as watermarking, provenance standards, and media literacy education. The DigitalEU Twitter account highlighted the challenge earlier this year, noting that fake news is getting harder and harder to spot, in particular because of AI-generated content, and urging citizens to learn how to find information they can trust.
Greece presents a striking paradox in this regard, as it recorded the EU’s lowest reported exposure to doubtful online information while simultaneously showing some of the highest rates of generative AI use among young people. Eurostat data reveal that 83.5 percent of Greeks aged 16 to 24 reported using generative AI tools, a figure far above the EU average and among the highest in the bloc. This youthful embrace of AI means that Greek users are not only consumers of AI-generated material but also active participants in creating it, blurring the line between production and consumption of synthetic content. It is plausible that young Greeks, by virtue of their familiarity with AI tools, are more capable of recognizing AI-generated content and therefore more accurate in their assessments of doubtful information, but it is equally possible that their comfort with synthetic media makes them less concerned about its potential harm. Transparency concerns have already materialized in high-profile cases, including an incident involving the British Museum, which faced criticism over AI-generated social media images after questions arose over whether viewers were clearly informed that a person shown in the posts was not real. Such episodes illustrate the broader problem: as AI-generated material becomes more common, determining the origin and credibility of digital content becomes essential, yet many users lack the tools or skills to do so. Greece’s combination of low reported misinformation exposure and exceptionally high youth AI usage suggests that the country may be navigating a very different information environment than the rest of Europe, one in which younger users are deeply integrated into the AI ecosystem but do not perceive a high level of false content around them. Whether this reflects genuine resilience or a blind spot is an open question that the current data cannot answer.
Ultimately, Greece’s position at the bottom of the EU ranking should be understood as the lowest rate of reported exposure to questionable information, not as proof that the country has the lowest amount of misinformation online. Eurostat’s annual survey on information and communication technology use provides valuable insight into internet access and online activity, but it is not a measure of the factual accuracy of the internet in any given country. Misinformation can flourish in environments where users do not recognize it, where platforms amplify it without clear labels, or where trust in domestic media is so low that citizens turn to unverified sources. Greece’s low self-reported figure may be a sign of healthy skepticism, a consequence of unique media habits, or a reflection of survey interpretation, but it cannot be taken as a clean bill of health. As AI-generated material becomes more common, checking the source of information, comparing claims against reliable evidence, and understanding the difference between independent reporting, opinion, and synthetic content are becoming increasingly important parts of navigating the online world. European policymakers, media organizations, and educational institutions face the challenge of equipping citizens with these skills, but the 55.9 percent EU-wide exposure figure shows that work remains urgent. For Greece, the combination of low reported misinformation exposure and high youth AI adoption creates an unusual profile that deserves further research, especially as the country transitions to social media as its primary source of news. The Eurostat data do not allow causal conclusions, but they highlight the need for continued attention to how misinformation spreads, how users perceive it, and how the rapid advance of artificial intelligence is changing the very nature of doubt, trust, and truth in digital spaces.
