Finland is putting effort into combating fake news online. It started doing so way back in 2015, when President Sauli Niinisto called on all Finns to take responsibility in fighting false information. They are teaching school children, college students, adults, and seniors how to spot false online information and to develop skills in critical thinking and investigation.

Finland has only been an independent country for 101 years, and it shares an 832-mile border with Russia. During that century, Finland has had to deal with decades of propaganda from the Kremlin. During World War II, Finland surprised and repulsed the much greater and more heavily armed invading Soviet forces in the Winter War.

In a relatively short period time Finland has catapulted from a mostly agrarian country to one of the most literate and technologically advanced countries in the world. It routinely places tops in the world for the quality of its education system, a system which eschews standardized tests and marketplace competition, is completely publicly funded, and has the smallest differences between the weakest and strongest students in the world.

Finland was the first European country to grant the right to vote to all adults, and regularly places very high on measures of gender equality (fourth, behind Iceland, Norway, and Sweden in 2018). Just this month Finland elected the world’s youngest prime minister (34 years old), who also happens to be a woman.

Finland and her people occupy a special place in my heart as I was exchange student there one summer as a high school student. I still stay in touch with many dear and close Finnish friends. That Finland is successfully leading against this new technological propaganda front does not surprise me.