Xenophobia_and_Fake_News_Notario_Cardena_IROCAMM

1. Introduction

According to the Fundéu BBVA (2017), a false information or news item can be defined as Fake News when it involuntarily or premeditatedly misses the truth, “the adjective falsified suggests a shade of premeditated adulteration or corruption”. Wardle points out that the definition of false news goes beyond the sum of the two terms that make it up. While the meaning of “news” is presented as a “complete ecosystem of information,” the adjective “false” captures the different types of misinformation that make it up. On the one hand, the involuntary dissemination of false information and, on the other, the deliberate creation and dissemination of information that is known to be false (2017).
The use of Fake news has been qualified as “Word of the Year 2017” by the Collins Dictionary, and the sixth candidate of the Fundéu. However, this term has different meanings among Spanish people. According to a survey by Global CIGI-Ipsos (2018), 56% of Spanish people surveyed define it as “a story or news item with false information”. Secondly, 44% say that it is “those stories that the media or politicians take only with data that supports their arguments”. Finally and thirdly, 36% adopt the version that it is “that information that politicians and media use to discredit those news with which they disagree”.
In this sense, the proliferation of this false news has caused both institutions and media to mobilize against them. Among the actions taken is fact-checking, which consists of reviewing and verifying statements or data, certifying the veracity of the figures and content expressed. These terms are commonly used in English as “verification of facts or data”. However, as expressed on its website Miniver.org, this expression does not seem to be the most suitable, “the definition of ‘fact’ in English implies the fact as the opposite of interpretation. So there is no point in verifying something that has taken place, although it would be correct to speak of “verification of statements of fact” (2019), because this is where lies can occur, in statements and in the interpretation of events.
In Spain, as in other parts of the world, measures have been taken in the media and platforms with the aim of developing verifications. Duke University’s Reporters’ Lab, an updated web space in which, by means of a map, it geographically locates the existing fact-checking initiatives in the world, states that the active media or verification projects in Spain are the following: “El Objetivo”, Maldito Bulo (Maldita.es), “La Chistera” (El Confidencial), Polétika and Newtral. Maldita.es has been selected for this research.
The fact-checking is shown in different ways, classifying it is complex. Palau-Sampio collects the analysis of Graves & Cherubini in which two models are presented, one adscription led by professionals and associated to the traditional media (newsroom model), and another non profit model (NGO model). The first one arises in the media. While the second does not receive pressure from the media but survives thanks to contributions from foundations and entities, Maldita.es (Palau-Sampio, 2018) belongs to this second group [8].
Another way to classify fact-checking is by the contents it analyzes (Miniver.org, 2019) and distinguishes systems that focus on:

Verification of statements made by politicians (corresponds to classic fact-checking)
Verification of popular culture stories. They investigate rumors, hoaxes and urban legends. These actions can be found at Maldita.es
Verification of news published by the media.

However, despite the effectiveness of these verification instruments in detecting hoaxes or false information, Borel (2017) considers that fact-checking is not enough to “save” us from the Fake News. In his opinion, the Fake News highlights a social phenomenon at stake: “the struggle between different people who imagine the kind of world each one wants for himself”. A vision that explains the success of the diffusion of this type of content as an affirmation of political or social ideals.

2. Methodology, objectives and assumptions

This investigation will focus on the actions of Maldita Migración, a platform dedicated to unmasking rumours and false information linked to the issue at hand. It is one of the sections of Maldita.es, selected by the European Commission (2018)[9] to be part of the group of experts of Ato Nivel: Wardle (First Draft), Kelis Nielsen (Reuters Institute), Mantzarlis (IFCN) and Jiménez Cruz (Maldita.es).

An exploratory and analytical methodology will be used for this, of a theoretical and empirical nature, examining qualitatively and quantitatively a selection of false news detected by those responsible for the platform. Therefore, a double approach has been used to develop this research:

Theoretical, with the aim of finding out the different types of false news that are created, taking into account their content, purpose or intentionality and forms of dissemination. The vulnerability of the recipients to false news will also be observed, as well as the actions taken by the institutions, that is, the institutional and media measures to deal with it, emphasizing the particularity of the information on migration.
Empirical, through the analysis of the Maldita Migración account, a project focused on verifying the information circulating in social networks. Its managers are responsible for verifying the messages related to the subject under investigation, applying data journalism techniques. A total of 20 hoaxes circulated during the months of June, July and August 2019 have been investigated. Three templates or cards have been used for this purpose:
1. The first one identifies and classifies the hoaxes in a technical file that includes the following items: identification number, date of report of the hoax, date of publication, titles with which it is disseminated, network or media where the hoax is published, subject matter, migrant origin, dissemination in networks and level of dissemination.
2. The second analyses the contents of the hoaxes and classifies them on the basis of Wardle’s proposals (2017) into the existing types of disinformation: satire, false context, misleading content, fabricated content, false connection, manipulated content, etc.
3. The third, interprets from the previous data the causes and intentions from which the diffusion of these hoaxes is created or promoted. To do this, the relationship proposed by Wardle is used, completed with the classification made by the Guardia Civil’s Department of Telematic Crimes [10] (Pascual, 2017). And the causes of these hoaxes are proposed: the expression of a deficient journalism, the intention of paradiar (parody), the intention of provoking, partisanship, profit, passion, political power or influence, the creation of propaganda, generating social alarm, obtaining economic benefit and the reaffirmation of ideals.

The quantitative and qualitative examination and its analysis will be represented in graphs that complement and synthesize this research, which pursues the following objectives:

To typify the contents and motivations contained in the chosen sample.
To quantify the percentage of false content disseminated by social networks.
Relate the scope of this information to public and political discourses with a xenophobic tone, which are spread by public opinion.

This research, therefore, starts from the hypothesis that behind issues such as migration there are ideological interests. Therefore, emphasis will be placed on highlighting from each hoax the specific purposes for which it appears to have been created, with the aim of validating the ideological or political intent underlying its dissemination. It is impossible to put an end to these false contents, so in order to confront them it is necessary to denounce them and share with the citizens the intention behind them, so that they become aware of the evil purpose behind their construction and dissemination. They are also shown how to denounce and acknowledge them. The ones located in Maldita Migración contain a clear and worrying ideological intention, to seek the rejection of the foreigner. However, there are different types of platforms and institutional actions that defend this group, denouncing the lies that are poured on them and exposing the racist intentions that surround them.

3. Data on migration in Spain

Just over 4,572,000 people with foreign nationality live in Spain, which constitutes 9.8% of the country’s population, according to the figures of the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Of the total resident population in Spain, 4.1% came from European Union States, while 5.6% were non-EU foreigners. The numbers are within the European average (Sánchez and Sánchez, 2019) [11].

The population in Spain has been rising steadily since the second half of 2015. And it is doing so thanks to immigration, as it has been in negative vegetative balance ever since. In July 2018 it increased to 46,733,038 people, the highest figure in six years. According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE, 2018) [12], the arrival of 287,882 immigrants compensated for the departure of 166,318 emigrants and the negative natural balance of 46,273 people (the difference between 225,212 deaths and 178,939 births). Of the immigrants from abroad, 248,716 had foreign nationality and 39,166 were Spanish. Of the latter, 15,636 persons were born in Spain. Regarding emigration, 125,462 departures were by foreign nationals and 40,856 by Spaniards. Of the latter, 25,822 were born in Spain” (García, 2018).

“More and more people are coming and emigration is decreasing, so the migratory balance is growing quite strongly”, says Antonio Argüeso Jiménez, Deputy Director General of Socio-demographic Statistics of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), who stresses that “the migratory balance compensates for the loss caused by the low birth rate, so what is projected is that in the coming years the foreign population will increase”. This fits perfectly with the words of the Minister of Labour, Migration and Social Security, Magdalena Valerio, who stated that immigration is an opportunity to replenish the population pyramid. Therefore, she proposes to bet on a “regular, orderly and safe” immigration (García, 2018) [13].

The main nationalities of foreign immigrants were Moroccan (with 25,739), Colombian (23,454) and Venezuelan (20,775). The most numerous immigrant nationalities were Romanian (19,946), British (13,510) and Moroccan (11,249). These three were also the majority among the resident foreign population” (García, 2018).

4. Immigration Law

The Spanish law that regulates the entry and stay of non-EU foreigners in Spanish territory, as well as the rights and freedoms that are recognised for them, is known as the Law on Foreigners, Organic Law 4/2000, of 11 January, on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners in Spain and their Social Integration, modified by LO 8/2000, 14/2003 and 2/2009.

Despite the fact that Spain has been a country of emigration and its inhabitants have had to leave the country for economic, social and also political reasons. Because although there have been conquerors and colonisers, Spaniards have also been emigrants and refugees in other states. However, its legislation on foreigners has not been up to scratch and has been severely criticised.

The original Organic Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners, better known as Law 7/1985, approved by the PSOE, was denounced for its police treatment of migrants, for being restrictive with the rights of foreigners and for its deficient legal technique. It promoted a criminalizing view of immigration and valued such intervention as a matter of public order (Moreno, 2003) [14]. This was approved in the preambles to Spain’s entry into the European Community, trying to avoid becoming a gateway to the continent. It was maintained for fifteen years, although it was slightly relaxed after eleven years by Royal Decree 155/1996.

Although the reform was brought about by the Organic Law4/2000, after undergoing various modifications, it is the one in force today. It represented a major change, introduced integration policies, expanded the rights of immigrants and established a general principle of equality with Spaniards. But some fifty NGOs, grouped together in the platform Papeles para todos y todas. No human being is illegal, they denounced that in spite of the advances, the situation of the undocumented was worsening.

The law was approved by all the parliamentary groups except for the Popular Party. In fact, after the general elections, held in 2000, which gave the PP an absolute majority, they carried out a substantial reform, supported by the Coalición Canaria and Convergència i Unió, which returned in many cases to the solutions of the 1985 law. In a report by the General Council of the Judicial Branch on the draft bill, 14 of its 20 members considered it a “step backwards” (De la Cuadra, 2000) [15]. It was later modified in some of its points.

Article 23 defines “discriminatory acts,” which include “any act that directly or indirectly involves a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference against an alien based on race, color, ancestry or national or ethnic origin, religious beliefs and practices, and which has the purpose or effect of destroying or limiting the recognition or exercise, under conditions of equality, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social or cultural field” (2000) [16]. So many of the fake news stories that feed on the subject of migrants are a violation of this law.

Because in these hoaxes that appear from time to time, there are racist and xenophobic prejudices, linked to immigration: the idea of “invasion” derived from an exaggeration of the figures, comments on “abuse of social benefits” or “lack of integration”, the conception of immigration as a problem and its link to crime. Data and various expert studies dismantle these ideas, but their repetition tarnishes the real debate on immigration policy (Sánchez and Sánchez, 2019) [17].

5. The Spanish people in the face of migration

However, the majority of Spaniards, as is also the case in the EU, do not see any inconvenience in the arrival of immigrants. They believe that it is not negative for their salaries, their national identity or access to social services. According to a survey carried out by YouGov for the European Council on Foreign Relations, based on some 5,000 interviews conducted between January and February 2019, it reveals that when it comes to immigration issues, they are much more distressed about people who have to go to work in other countries than the people who arrive. They would like the State to find ways to convince young people in particular not to emigrate. This concern affects 63% of Spaniards while only 19% are worried about the people who arrive in Spain (Mas, 2019) [18].

The main problems are unemployment and corruption, which far outnumber immigration. Hence, there is a deep gap between what Spaniards think and what the political parties propose. The nationalist and xenophobic discourses of the ultra-right, as would be the case with Viktor Orban in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy or Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, in Spain, have a limited impact on society as a whole. Susi Dennison, senior researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations, believes that “election strategists should not approach the campaign on the basis of fear of immigration. The strength of the right-wing message on this front has been greatly exaggerated. The reality is more complex. In countries such as Spain, Poland, Greece, Italy and Hungary, emigration is as much if not more of a concern than immigration” (Mas, 2019) [19].

Figure 1: Survey data on migration

Source: YouGov for the European Council on Foreign Relations

6. Opinions on Fake News

False news has always occurred, what has changed is the extent to which it is reproduced on social networks. When the terms fake news are used, this phenomenon is captured. “The loss of centrality of the source and the possibility of ‘viralization’ - another term of the era - often diminish the interest in the veracity of the news and the critical reading skills to identify what is false. To the extent that large proportions of the population are informed on networks, these issues have very direct political consequences” (Fernández-García, 2017, 66) [20].

The CIGI-Ipsos 2019 global survey on Internet security and trust, conducted among Internet users worldwide, highlights not only the danger posed by the Internet, but also “the growing discomfort of Internet users with social networks and the power these corporations exert over their daily lives,” said Fen Osler Hampson , a distinguished member of CIGI and director of its global security and political program.

Eighty-six percent said they had fallen for the false news at least once, and 44 percent said they had sometimes or often done so. Only 14% said they had “never” been fooled by false news. Facebook was the most cited source of false news (77%), followed by Twitter (62%) and 74% of social network users overall. Ten percent of Twitter users said they had closed their Twitter account in the last year for this reason, and nine percent of Facebook users reported doing the same.

A third (35%) pointed to the United States as the country most responsible for the disruptive effect of false news in their country, followed significantly by Russia (12%) and China (9%).

The majority of Internet users worldwide support all efforts by governments and Internet companies to combat false news, from social networking and video sharing platforms, eliminating fake posts and videos (85%) and accounts (84%), to the adoption of automated approaches. to content removal (79%) and government censorship of online content (61%).

The CIGI-Ipsos Global Survey, now in its fifth year, is the most comprehensive survey in the world, involving more than 25,000 Internet users in over two dozen countries in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East , Africa and the Asia-Pacific region [21].

Previous studies, also conducted by the consulting firm Ipsos (2018), reveal that Spaniards (57%) are the Europeans who have fallen most into the trap of false news, ahead of Swedes (55%), Poles (55%), Belgians (45%), Germans (43%), French (43%), British (33%) or Italians (29%), and the fifth in the world, only behind Brazilians (67%), Saudis (58%), South Koreans (58%) and Peruvians (57%). According to the report, carried out in 27 countries around the world, “57% of Spaniards admit to having once believed the information in a fake news story to be true” (2018). Also 57% consider that they have a knowledge of the social reality of Spain as the rates of immigration or violence in our country higher than the national average [22].

The IPSOS international study also shows that more than half of the world’s population (65%) is convinced that the citizens of their country live in their own “information bubble”, which leads them to be connected to and follow mostly people who think similarly to them, in search of opinions with which they already agree. However, there is a worldwide tendency to believe that it is others who live in this “online bubble”. Thus, in Spain, 62% of its population says that Spaniards only seek information from those who think similarly, only 1 in 3 (30%) admit to being part of this bubble.

According to Vicente Castellanos, director of Public Affairs at IPSOS, “we tend to have a mistaken perception of the reality in which we live, and this makes it easier for false news to be spread without our being aware of it. In fact, despite the fact that we believe we have a high level of knowledge about the country’s social issues, the Ipsos study “Dangers of Perception” shows that most of the time this is not the case”. For example, in general we believe that the murder rate in Spain remains the same as in 2000, when it has actually dropped by half [23].

The IPSOS report highlights that almost 6 out of 10 Spaniards (59%) believe that the main cause of the significant lack of knowledge about the social reality of the country is the politicians, who confuse the population with biased, interested or false information. Secondly, they point to the media as the cause of this misinformation, with 44%. Finally, 38% point to social networks, and the same percentage (38%) believe that the problem lies in the fact that we have little or no information about the situation.

7. Stop the migration rumours

‘Stop Rumores’ is an initiative that promotes “the creation of an Anti-Tumor Agency, with the collaboration of entities and individuals, and whose objective is to combat the negative and uncertain rumors that make coexistence in diversity difficult in our closest environments” [24]. It is financed by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security and the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

To dismantle these falsehoods against migration, the Stop Rumors workshop has been set up, organized by the Andalucía Acoge Federation. The 21 neighbourhood associations of El Puerto de Santa María have been visited to teach the inhabitants how to put an end to these lies and train agents to “combat and dismantle” hoaxes. They were told that 90.9% of the users of social services in Andalusia in 2016 were Spanish and only 9.1% were foreigners, according to data from the Ministry of Labour.

Angel Madero, head of ‘Stop Rumores’, explains that “the accompaniment to re-elaborate the beliefs is long (...) What we seek is to generate doubt,” he adds. The two main fronts are attacked: the objective part - based on false data - and the emotional part - supported by experiences that touch on the personal. It is on the second one that Rodríguez, the workshop’s manager, finds the most opposition: “When you touch the fiber, that’s when you have to use yourself the most. When the person is older, it costs more work” [25].

The rumor that foreigners “come to take jobs” is one of the most common hoaxes. Rodriguez points out two more: “The one that says that Chinese shops don’t pay taxes or the one that talks about new immigrants being given a cell phone and 1,200.

Joseph Kahne and Benjamin Bowyer, in a study of young people, report that those who take courses on media literacy increase their ability to understand, evaluate and analyze media messages, although it is also necessary to enrich it with knowledge of what is being discussed (Kahne and Bowyer, 2017, 28) [26].

Since Stop Rumors began in 2013, they have seen how lies reappear or mutate, always maintaining their essence. “They respond to three basic atavistic fears: to lose one’s identity, to lose one’s livelihood and well-being, or to insecurity,” details Madero. It’s a problem because false news spreads faster than true news, as a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows. It also reveals that false news is 70 percent more likely to be retold than true stories. The average reach of six true stories needs to be added up to equal the average reach of one false one (Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018) [27].

In addition to these workshops, Andalucía Acoge gave talks to 12,000 people from Andalucía, Ceuta and Melilla. They have a website that received 122,000 visits [28]. Another 230 entities from all over Spain have already joined their initiative to prevent the spread of lies about immigration. Cities such as Barcelona, Getxo, Fuenlabrada, Castellón, Sabadell or the Cabildo of Tenerife already have similar projects with good results. Thus, the joint collaboration of their citizens and local administrations is allowing an active transformation of false rumours and stereotypes that make coexistence difficult.

The community is essential to put an end to false news. Without the help of citizens, “warning of the hoaxes and helping to share the denials is impossible to stop a false news (Muela, 2018) [29]. If you want to stop a viral hoax the only way is to make a denial that is just as viral”. “The solution is in a participatory community and education, and not by restrictive legislation” (Cárdenas, 2018) [30]. With this project, Andalucía Acoge seeks to promote an active, trained and informed citizenry to combat rumors.

8. Maldita Migración Project

The study is based on Maldita Migración, a journalistic project that uses data verification tools to find the truth in the information that circulates on the subject and that “in the first 20 days of January 2019” had uncovered 50 hoaxes about migration and refuge in Spain (Sputnik, 2019). This proposal is part of a larger project, Maldita.es, which uses fact-checking to denounce all false content or hoaxes in the media. Among its main sections, Maldito Bulo, Maldita Ciencia, Maldito Dato, Maldita te explica, and also contemplates a series of thematic subsections among which the object of our analysis Maldita Migración is included together with Maldito Feminismo, Maldita Educa and La Boluteca among others.

Maldita.es was born as a non-profit association with the following main objectives: firstly, to monitor and control political discourse and promote transparency in public and private institutions; secondly, to verify and fight against disinformation and finally, to promote media literacy and technological tools to create a conscious community that can defend itself from disinformation and can be found in all areas.

Damn Migration focuses on immigration and refugee hoaxes. Its website includes a search engine where you can check the veracity of the information circulating in WhatsApp strings, images and audios; you can search using keywords or even upload images. Maldita Migración also has weekly sections in eldiario.es and Onda Cero, and is supported by Oxfam Intermón.

9. Theoretical approach for the identification, classification and analysis of the confusing information reported by Maldita Migración

The object of analysis of this research is false news, that is, all those untrue contents disseminated in the media and networks that can contribute to confusing and tarnishing citizens’ decisions. However, previous research has shown that not all of this false information present in the information ecosystem is created in the same way and responds to the same intentionality. There are many classifications that address this issue, and for this work we have resorted to the proposal made by Wardle (2017) that brings together the reflections made by Eliot Higgins (2017). This author considers that three elements can be distinguished in the false information:

The different types of content that are created and disseminated.
The motivations of those who create this content.
The ways in which this content is disseminated.

9.1. Types of Content

With respect to the types of content created and disseminated in the false news, Wardle and the First Draft (2017) team point out that they correspond to seven types of misinformation:

Table 1: Classification of the types of disinformation and their definition

Types of desinformation	Meaning
Satire or parody	Their authors do not intend to cause harm even if they succeed.
False Connection	When the headlines, images or legends do not confirm the content.
Deceptive Content	Misleading use of information to incriminate someone or something.
Imposter Content	When genuine sources are supplanted
Manufactured Content	New content that is predominantly false, designed to deceive and harm
False Context	When genuine content is disseminated with false context information.
Content Manipulated	When images or information are manipulated to deceive.

Source: First Draft (2017)

9.2. Causes or Motivations

With respect to the causes or motivations of those who create this content: according to Wardle’s classification (2017) the dissemination or promotion of the different contents indicated in the previous typology respond to different strategies: to be an example of deficient journalism, to discredit or exalt an institution or person through parody, to make propaganda, to show passion or partisanship, to provoke, to induce error, or to seek power and political influence. To these motivations we must add those pointed out by the Department of Telematic Crimes of the Guardia Civil in Spain, which classifies false news in three typologies, according to the intention of the creator, it is sought (Pascual, 2017):

To generate social alarm.
To obtain economic benefit.
Reaffirmation of ideals.

The present investigation contemplates for the analysis of the contents the totality of Wardle’s considerations and includes the three typologies indicated by the Guardia Civil. And it establishes the following scheme for the analysis:

Table 2: Causes or Motivations

Causes or motivations	The most common types of misinformation for these reasons
Poor journalism	False connection, misleading content and false context disinformation
Parody	Satires, hoaxes with impostor content, and/or fabricated
Provocation	Disinformations with impostor content, manipulated and manufactured
Partisanship	Hoaxes with misleading content, false context and false connection.
Benefit	Hoaxes with fabricated content, or false context or false connection.
Power	False connection, false context, manipulated and fabricated content.
Propaganda	Misleading Content, Misleading Context, Impostor Content, Fabricated and Manipulated
Generate social alarm	Hoaxes with manipulated content, and false connection.
Obtain economic benefit	Misleading content, false context, impostor content, fabricated and manipulated
Reaffirmation of ideals	Hoaxes with misleading content, false context and false connection.

Source: Own elaboration from First Draft (2017) and Pascual (2017)

9.3. The ways in which this content is disseminated

Finally, with regard to the modes of dissemination of this content: In general, news portals, written press, radio, television and social networks are used for dissemination. These news when published in satirical media are not considered as such, their objective is merely humorous, the problem occurs when that information by mistake or in a malicious way is spread as true, confusing the receivers. As Jordi Évole puts it, “the financial problems of the big media and their consequent lack of independence, the political interests of each medium, the lack of resources of the editorial staff and the dictatorship of the click also contribute to this. All of this has led the journalistic profession to relax rigor and not to contrast the news (Amorós, 2018: 18). False news presents a serious problem when its intention is to influence social behaviour, and despite the fact that throughout history it has been resorted to as a manipulative strategy (Koyré, 2009), new communication technologies and all the strategies and supports they present, have favoured its propagation. These have also damaged the credibility of serious media and their journalists, linking them to the dissemination of false facts.

There are also other mechanisms of dissemination of these contents pointed out by First Drafts (2017) and they are:

Citizens without realizing it, they rethink it without checking it.
Journalists covering information extracted from the social web.
Other indirectly connected groups that deliberately try to influence public opinion.
As part of sophisticated disinformation campaigns, through botnets and troll factories.

10. Results: classification and analysis of selected hoaxes about the migration phenomenon

The sample selected for this research comprises a total of 20 hoaxes chosen from those reported by the Maldita Migración platform in the months of June, July and August 2019.

Firstly, these hoaxes have been identified and recorded on the basis of defining elements included in a template or technical sheet (see table 1) set out in the methodology. Secondly, the analysis developed by the theoretical apparatus set out in the previous section has been applied, which distinguishes between them:

First, the classification of hoaxes according to the types of disinformation they disseminate according to Wardle’s proposal. Some of them are framed in more than one. For this purpose, a second systematized template is used, which is included in the methodology.
Second, the recognition of the different causes or motivations that push to the diffusion of these information applying the third template referred in the methodological explanation.

10. 1. Selected hoaxes

The identification and registration of the selected hoaxes includes the following items:

Hoax number: a number is assigned to the hoax.
Date of report of the hoax: this records the moment in which the chosen portal Maldita Migración (Damn Hoax) verifies the falsity of the content disseminated. It has also been verified that other fact-checking sites such as Newtral also echo these hoaxes.
Date of publication of the hoax: moment in which the diffusion of the same one has begun. Some are recurrent hoaxes, i.e. they are constantly repeated.
Content: List of published headlines.
Place of publication of the hoax: site or network where the hoax is published or where the dissemination of the hoax begins.
Theme: All focus on Migration.
Category: Events/ Public Administration.
Migrant origin: Country of origin or population of the protagonists of the hoax.
Dissemination on social networks: Indicates the medium through which the content has had the greatest impact: Twitter, Facebook, or WhatsApp.
Levels of dissemination (no. of Retweets/ likes or comments): the scope or level of dissemination is classified as: high, medium and low. The high level corresponds to 150 retweeds or more, the medium level to 80 or more and the low level when they do not reach 20. It is also necessary to emphasize that some of these data have disappeared in some of the hoaxes because their authors have removed them.

In this first record, shown in Table 1 below, it can be seen that the selected hoaxes are:

Circulate mostly in the summer period, although some of them are repetitive and had been disseminated at the beginning of the year.
With regard to editorial content, false information is offered by means of alarming headlines and bodies of text that lack verified sources.
The stories focus on the migrant population of Moroccan origin or Muslim population. With respect to the narrative, almost ninety percent of the disinformation refers to the following topics: violations, aggressions, “supposed privileges” of an economic nature that the migrant population may have at a given time, or criminal actions by unaccompanied foreign minors (MENAS).
With regard to the resources used in the circulation of these hoaxes, they contain images and videos that are out of context; in most cases they are true images, but they took place in other contexts far from the framework in which they are narrated. Their accelerated dissemination through social networks or whastapp chains makes it difficult to verify them.

All these aspects contribute to the expansion in public opinion of an image of the migrant population that is alien to reality and that offers a negative discourse based on a securitarian approach that identifies the person who seeks refuge in a country as a threat (Aguilar-Idáñez & Buraschi, 2018). The discourse of fear and the consideration of migrants and refugees as a threat to security have become some of the most common expressions of contemporary racism. (Aguilar-Idáñez & Buraschi, 2018).

7. References

Aguilar-Idáñez & Buraschi (2018): “Migrantes y refugiados: apuntes clave para un nuevo relato” en Revista Lusófona de Educação, 37, 103-116. doi: 10.24140/issn.1645-7250.rle37.07.

Andalucía Acoge. Recuperado de:https://acoge.org/

Borel, B. (4 de enero de 2017) Fact Checking Won’t Save Us From Fake News, FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved from: https://53eig.ht/2YzRz5B

Cañas J.A. (24 de abril 2019). Batalla de barrio a las ‘fake. El País. Retrieved from: https://elpais.com/politica/2019/04/22/actualidad/1555954005_691802.html

Cárdenas, Mª L. (2018). “Actuaciones periodísticas contra las fake news: Malditos bulos”. Congreso Comunicación y Filosofía. Universidad de Sevilla, Priego de Córdoba.

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