The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the socio-economic determinants influencing the ability to detect misinformation and the likelihood of its sharing across four European countries: Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Spain. Findings reveal significant variations in media literacy and sharing behaviors influenced by demographic, ideological, and social factors (Montolio & Riambau, 2025). The findings underscore the complexity and potential biases associated with political information. Results also have significant implications for understanding the dynamics of information spread on social media. The tendency to share fake or sensational news more than true news underscores the challenges in combating misinformation (Montolio & Riambau, 2025). Misinformation and disinformation affect all subject areas of formal education. Therefore, it should be conceived as a transversal and iterative task across all subject areas, so that the judgment of information forms part of the digital behavior patterns of all citizens.

The competence of ‘information judgement’ is closely associated with digital competence as defined in the European Union’s ‘Key Competences for Lifelong Learning’ (EU 2018). It is also pertinent to mention the concept of media and information literacy as defined by UNESCO (Frau-Meigs, 2023). In the following sections, both concepts will be referred to as ‘digital competence’, in accordance with the terminology used by the EU.
Before presenting the findings, the current academic debate on the influence of the internet, digital platforms, and misinformation on democratic processes will be briefly reviewed. This provides context for the online experiment. After the presentation of its results, an outline of the relevance of the competence ‘judging information’ and of education for democracy will be provided. The results of the experiment demonstrate that, in addition to the instrumental competence aspects of assessing information, social aspects such as critical thinking and ethical attitudes are particularly important when responding to information (Geers et al., 2024).