The upcoming European elections are around the corner. Unfortunately, fake news can easily influence the election process, facilitating the spread of misinformation to voters. It could be construed as a source of propaganda and sometimes it is hard to tell what is true or false. Leading search engines and social media channels have been preparing to fight fake news spread through the internet. 

The rise of populism and the Brexit negotiations have created a rather polarised political scene, leading to the campaigning of this election to become tense. The official campaign of this election, ‘thistimeimvoting’, is aimed at stating the facts to people to encourage democratic engagement and to spread awareness to citizens in a bid to help them make an informed decision when voting. 

Ultimately, no one has full control over the spread of fake news and it is up to the individual to verify the source of information when coming across a news item. Solutions to combating fake news include collaboration of social media sites and journalists to verify the information before spreading it, along with the creation of software that can detect misinformation.