Factchequeado was born, an initiative to combat disinformation in Spanish in the United States

Fighting Disinformation in Spanish in the United States. This is the goal of Factchequeado, a project promoted by Maldita y Chequeado, with the support of the Google News Initiative, which aims to create a Latin and Spanish-speaking community, promote alliances with fact-finding media and organizations, and create its own certified content.

This new media, presented at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin, Texas, tracks misinformation circulating on social media and in the traditional press to help citizens know if the content they receive is true, fake, or grounded. Little or no evidence, or no context. It will also seek to “provide a learning space for Spanish journalists to fact-check, experiment with new formats and technologies, and provide a database to facilitate academic research,” Maldita said.

“The project arises from disinformation during the pandemic and is reinforced by what we saw during the war in Russia and Ukraine. We realized that disinformation in Spanish is a silk route that moves in all directions in Spain, Latin America, and Latin American society in the United States. “Big disinformers act globally on issues like science or migration,” said Julio Montes, director and co-founder of Maldita.es. “In talking to Chekeado, we realized we had the same problems and wondered if something similar was happening in Latin American communities.”

One of the pillars of the project, says Montes, is the listening process: “We want to hear not only everything related to misinformation, but also public suspicions about various issues that concern them: from vaccines to visas. . To address Latin issues and listen to them, you need to talk about their problems. ”

Factchequeado has already introduced its first alliances with major media such as Telemundo, Politifact or Univision (El Detector). As well as other fact-checking companies such as FactCheck.org, and small news outlets such as MediaWise, Enlace Latino, DocumentedNY or Conexión Migrante.