The kitchen of the false news: here is how the false news is produced in the countryside

Dawn of the election year. A politician's advisor calls a friend who owns a website and presents it as an information medium. He wants to "move" the information against an opponent. They set the cost, a few clicks and the note is online. Now you have to circulate it. Call a communications officer and start troll accounts engineering and autoplay. The link is running. It spreads on the walls,
delays and discussions. Receive comments and "I love". We must wait until it is "raised" by a referent with many followers or a mbad media. If fake news "lights up" among users and spreads on the Web, it will be a success.

The case corresponds to the experience of a virtual communication consultant with the attribution of a false news. And although the process of creating a
false news It has multiple variants, the goal is always the same: manipulate public opinion by a lie presented as a fact truth. Although the information verification specialists (fact checkers) recommend calling them "disinformation".

In Argentina, more and more frequently, leaders, politicians and NGOs are worried that this election year will be over. Especially after the election experience in Brazil, where false news has marked the electoral process, especially via WhatsApp.

As he was able to rebuild LA NACION from interviews with politicians, journalists, digital communication consultants and academics, in Argentina
false news they are produced and reproduced on instructions of instruments with special interests: political parties, financiers, governments and personalities give them the initial impetus, then let the mechanism of information consumption in the networks, where control is not the most common.

The main parties deny the dissemination of false content and accuse their opponents. In the Pro, they consider them "counterproductive" and say that Kirchnerism has a "megausin" of
false news At Unidad Ciudadana, they are convinced that Mauricio Macri's party promotes this type of publications. Even Cristina Kirchner denounced the fact that the media has
false news against him.

Meanwhile, false news circulates in the virtual world against referents from both ends of the ideological spectrum, as well as against references from other parties. SOMOS leader Victoria Donda denounced several attacks of this style during the abortion debate. This year, the news circulated from the photo of a woman who looked like him and consuming cocaine.

Another example came after the last Lollapalooza festival. Broadcast in social networks a video in which a group of people appears descending from a plane, with a caption that indicates that one of them was the daughter of Governor Maria Eugenia Vidal. This was not true.

Cases abound. It is difficult to measure how much money is flowing, but going out every day, especially in the run-up to the elections, does not seem like a distant statement of reality.

MISINFORMATION

There is no official definition of the concept of misinformation or
false news NGOs, governments, the media and dictionaries repeat the interpretations and tend to think that they are false content that seeks to misinform.

The
The British media report "Cairncross Review", published by the British government in February, describes the
false news as "misinformation [entendida como] the deliberate creation or dissemination of false or manipulated information intended to deceive or mislead audiences, either for the purpose of causing harm or for political, personal or financial gain ".

THE MECHANISM

The spread of fake news is not a new phenomenon, but social networks have given them unprecedented momentum. They can be produced organically if it's a game, or tertiarized. The price requested by the consulting firms or the press agencies offering the
false as a one-time service or as part of a communication pack – depends on different variables, such as release times, network type and deployment. If erroneous information is needed for the same day, they are charged more expensive than if they were planned. And if it is a long-term development (for example, the months before the elections), it negotiates with figures greater than six digits. A network communication packet is paid to a consultant between 30 and 40,000 pesos at least. In addition, there are websites that publish information and charge misinformation.

The amount also varies according to the number of social networks they cover. A strategy on Facebook and Twitter is more accessible, but the expertise on Instagram is not as prevalent, that's why it's more expensive.

"People do not check, it is very easy to reproduce a lie," he explains by telephone, with reservation of his identity, a consultant in Internet communication who manages a decade ago an agency dedicated to the diffusion in the networks. From his offices, he proposes the creation of a new via one of its portals (in news format with title and escutcheon) or exclusively on networks (for example, via a meme); and the mechanism to reproduce them through trolls and bots.

The main success of a
false news It resides in the number of times it is reproduced and the number of "impressions" that it causes. When the work is on track, those who bademble it show their clients the metrics that account for the tangible results: interactions, number of shared users, shared. Although, when it comes to WhatsApp, the measurement is almost impossible.

MANUFACTURING

Misinformation pieces take different forms with different levels of sophistication. What does it take to make them? According to experts, not too much. To emulate a news site, simulate a tweet capture from a verified account, create a meme, "fool" a photo or print an overprinted text, just use the basic tools of a program. image editing. But there are also websites that make it easy with some models. They are not presented or created to create
false news but make jokes or dedications, but they can serve these purposes. These images tend to circulate with thousands of reproductions via social networks.

However, the photos are the least complex versions of
false news To create more fake news, we use the creation of a website (there are many options to do it for free) that serves as a platform to create a URL (web address) where a "new" is created with title , download, photo and text. The more the photo is qualified and written, and the more professional the photo, the better it will be. And if it's posted on a real news site that agrees to publish a
false news, the effect will be bigger.

Meanwhile, technology is advancing, also in favor of misinformation. A system is already in place that allows you to create a distorted image and the sound of images in an accessible and professional way, so that, for example, a certain person will appear saying an action or a statement that he never made or said.

And the
false news they also influence Wikipedia. The site allows any user to provide information on each page, provided that he supports each instruction with an appointment in url format. The problem is that, very often, the "encyclopedia", which is usually used as a reliable source precisely by this mechanism, becomes a false source, thanks to news quotes that appear as true, but are false.

DIFFUSION

A user who does not respond to an organization can create a false news with an image editing program and broadcast it via his social network accounts. But, unless you have a large number of followers, you probably will not have more impact. For that one
false news work, it is necessary to "move" it through bot programs and the use of trolls. Or reach the legitimacy. Dissemination is the key to misinformation.

How by opinion leaders or respected entities. An actor with millions of followers, a political leader and an animal rights NGO can achieve – usually unintentionally, with a simple retweet or sending a message that seems believable – that a false news multiplies Countless times. "Politicians are falling a lot, especially those who run their own accounts because they refuse to have a community manager," said a consultant.

When misinformation is already in circulation, users "on foot" enter the scene. Men and women who are not organized, who receive no education, salary, or political income for spreading false news but share it on their personal social networks because they believe them real or do not care about level of truth.

If the
false news Started anonymously on networks, the "final" impulse (in quotation marks because it does not necessarily intervene in the last part of the process) can be given by traditional media when they legitimize false information by reproducing them. on their platforms, that it is about newspapers, TV channels portals.

ARGENTINES AND DISINATION

Measure how much
false news in the public opinion is a difficult task. In general, studies available around the world ask users if they are aware of their existence, what they think, how they are, or how they are treated.

A
A study by Science Advances concluded that most of the false news, before the 2016 US elections, where disinformation played a central role, was shared mainly by Republicans over the age of 65.

In Argentina, one of the most recent studies of public behavior in relation to
false news, from the SOLO Comunicación agency, gave a similar result. 26% of users do not check the veracity of the current information they see on the Internet portals. The older they get, the less they check.

"Once they discovered that the information that circulates can be false, nearly half of those who confirm it, 48% decide to ignore them, 28% report the fake to their contacts, 12% block their sending the information and only 3% denounce the publication ", specified to the NATION Martin Romeo, strategic director of the agency, in charge of the investigation.

He also showed that Facebook and WhatsApp are, in this order, the most used platforms for sharing current information in Argentina.

CRIETA: FERTILE GROUND

Conicet's researcher, Natalia Aruguete, who studies "activating stories in social networks," ensures that users tend to spread (retweet) messages that coincide with their prior beliefs and to avoid skewed messages. to expose and share content generating "dissonances". . The
false news circulate in networks with this same dynamic.

"In a network that has become polarized, false news is more likely to be activated by more polarized users in their political and ideological positions, as long as there is an agreement with this false news and their content coincides with the prevailing worldview of these users is precisely in a social network that has polarized its dialogue around a problem where the probability of spreading (through preferences or retweets) will be misleading ", said the doctor of social sciences and the master in economic sociology.

According to Aruguete, false news does not change the ideas of those who are more politically involved in a subject and therefore have more knowledge about it, although such news "may surprise people who do not have a lot of knowledge on the subject in question. "

The
false news they usually have very striking content, things that make people even doubt themselves, but many people share them because they agree with what they think, for example, about a certain politician.

Political scientist Kevin Grunbaum, a consultant in digital communication, who daily badyzes the behavior of social networks to advise his clients, is convinced that the false news "is more fertile" in crack and ensure that misinformation does not tend to change. ;opinion. but to "radicalize the radical positions".

The benefit of
false This is not in effect on the ideological poles – although it is they who circulate it – but in the impact on the voters who do not find a candidate who satisfies them. That is to say the undecided. "In this case, we think that it can distort an opinion, from one side or the other," Grunbaum said.

Due to its size, undecided voters are a key element for the political forces in the upcoming elections. According to the latest polling intentions of the management consulting firm & Management & Fit and the University of San Andrés, the percentage of voters not yet defined represents about 40% of the electorate .

At the beginning of the election year, the
false news They appear every week, sometimes every day, with different levels of impact, for different topics. At the end of the propagation process, users who believe that this information is real and disseminate it are involved. They are a crucial part of the propagation process, but also the people most affected by an intentional and organized mechanism, albeit at a lower cost, with consequences as vast as it is difficult to measure, above all, to combat.