Abstract

Analysis of post-truth and, especially, of the underlying phenomenon of fake news in terms of evaluation and ability to identify reliable sources, and the role of libraries as infomediaries. The main international initiatives proposed by organizations such as IFLA and ALA are discussed. According to the bibliography reviewed, two main kinds of action are proposed: inclusion in informational literacy programs, mainly extending media literacy so that they are oriented from a more civic perspective; and content curation, making thematic guides that are a point of information about the phenomenon and its tools to verify facts. Libraries should act also as a gateway to disseminate information of the library’s collection.

Abstract

Misinformation, post-truth and fake news are the consequence of the complex interaction between technological disruption, collective interpersonal communication and sociopolitical action. We analyzed the impact of content produced by the hacktivist Julian Assange [1] and his WikiLeaks organization in support of the Catalan independence process in the last quarter of 2017. A total of 1,708,087 unique results were retrieved from multiple streams of Internet data, of which 99.85% is from Twitter with a 93% viralization rate. The 50 most viral tweets were analyzed qualitatively to identify the underlying misinformation patterns. The research findings show 1) the extent to which such misinformation favors the internal logic, coherence and survival of the independence worldview, whose main value lies in its national utility and 2) misinformation does not use the coercion of lies or falsehoods typical of totalitarian propaganda, but the freedom of citizens to voluntarily engage.

Abstract

Disinformation is one of the great challenges threatening the health of the public space and democratic systems, which must be based on truth to facilitate decision-making by citizens. For this reason, the fight against fake news has attracted attention from professionals and researchers during the last five years. In the journalistic field, numerous fact-checking outlets have been established. They use the media at their disposal and, above all, social networks to make verified content visible. TikTok, an emerging social video platform (very popular among the youth population), is the latest tool to be explored by fact-checkers to make the truth public. In this context, this paper aims to (1) determine the characteristics of fact-checkers’ videos that drive their engagement on TikTok and (2) identify the factors that predict the number of likes, comments, views, times shared, and engagement rate of such content. All the videos published on this platform by the Spanish fact-checkers Maldito bulo and Newtral (n = 320) during the first 26 months of activity of both outlets were analyzed. Bivariate correlational studies, multiple linear regression, and binary logistic regression tests were applied. The type of content (verification versus explanation) has a greater impact on engagement than the topics of the videos. Verifications multiply the probability of a content getting an above-average number of likes, by 2.42. If the video is hosted by a woman, it doubles its chances of getting an above-average number of shares. Our results provide other valuable data that can help fact-checkers make their content more easily spreadable.