JASON REDMOND/TED Image caption Olga Yurkova founded StopFake
A powerful talk about the need to do more to counter fake news has opened the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) 2018 conference in Vancouver.
Journalist Olga Yurkova described a false story in which the Ukrainian army had supposedly “crucified” a three-year-old child.
The story, reported by Russian state media, came from a woman claiming to be a refugee.
“The only problem was that the story was not true,” explained Ms Yurkova.
That – and stories like it – led her to co-found StopFake, a fact-checking website set up to counter Russian propaganda in Ukraine.
The refugee, Galyna Pyshnyak, was in fact the wife of a pro-Russian militant.
The crucifixion never happened and even the location of the event was made up.
“The story claimed that the army had rounded up the locals…
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