Disinformation in Spain one year after COVID-19. Analysis of the Newtral and Maldita verifications

Abstract

According to a Digital New Deal study (Kornbluh and Goodman, 2020), participation and engagement with these pages increased by 102% since the 2016 US presidential election. In their digital strategy, social networks are fundamental vehicles of diffusion but also the link-building work with similar pages that contributes to creating and reinforcing social bubbles that promote polarization (Nikolov et. al., 2015;DiFranco;Gloria-García, 2017). [...]the disinformation of extreme right-wing ideologies causes more adherence and, therefore, more viralization than those of the extreme left, registering an average of 426 interactions per thousand followers per week (Edelson et al., 2021). Achieving high viral content or manipulating social interactions is also an objective of manipulation and a fast track to position issues in public debate. [...]although it is in 2010 when the first fake news about electoral processes in Massachusetts began to be recorded, it is not until 2014 when the first intentional information begins to be observed that