The whole truth about misinformation | Clara Jiménez | TEDxMadrid

We live in the age of hoaxes, every day we are exposed to a constant influx of information and misinformation, however, both look alike.
To differentiate them and get rid of what is called "fake news", Clara Jiménez and other journalists have created maldita.es, a nonprofit organisation who focuses on journalism investigation and visibility of this phenomenon. In her talk, she unmasks some of the common techniques that misinformants use and she teaches us how to avoid falling into their traps.

Clara is cofounder of maldita.es, along with Julio Montes. It is an independent journalism project whose aim is to give citizens "the tools to fight against deceiving."

Clara has developed the majority of her professional career in Sexta channel, first of all in the informative services and later on in different programs like Debate Al Rojo Vivo, la Sexta Columna and la Sexta Noche. Between 2013 and 2018 she was a member of El Objectivo de Ana Pastor. She is also a member of the International Advisory Board Fact-Checking Network. She left la Sexta to dedicate her time to Maldita.es project and she collaborates in Julia program in Onda from Onda Cero and Gente Despierta from RNE.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

October 28th, 2017,
a group of elderly

were visiting Cabárceno Natural Park
in Cantabria.

When they were around
the hippopotamus enclosure,

one of the animals
surprised them with a big fart

which caused some of
the elders to fall down.

Three of them were taken to hospital.

It seems unbelievable, doesn't it?

Well, this headline,

"The fart of a hippo

sent three zoo visitors
directly to hospital,"

was published in several mass media
that we all consider serious,

we think they have credibility,
they seem trustworthy.

However,

this headline is fake,

It is a hoax.

My life changed some months ago.

I left my work at a TV station

to create, along with a partner,

an independent journalist project

that fights against misinformation,

that bets for data journalism,

for trustworthiness,

for transparency,

and for memory.

It will help citizens distinguish
what is true

and what is not.

That is what I want to talk to you today.

Let's go.

(Sounds)

When we hear this, we know
we are going to hear a newsletter.

We identify these sounds as
the consumption of radio information.

We see this:

(Music)

And we know that the TV news
are about to start.

We associate these images and that music

with the uptake
of audiovisual information.

We touch this paper, we have it
in our hand and we know that this,

is an information consumption format,
a newspaper.

Our senses associate
these formats with news.

Even though they can lie to us, right?
I can feel it in the audience.

What we have internalised is
that in those formats,

we get information.

This is what we call "the anchor"
in maldita.es

Stay with this, because
you are going to hear it over again.

And then you will say:

What has changed? What is different?

(Donald Trump audio)

"We are fighting the fake news.

I call the fake news
'then enemy of the people'

And they are. Fake news."

(Audio finishes)

This is what has changed:

to have Internet
in our pockets at all times

and to consume every time more
and more news through WhatsApp, Twitter,

Facebook, Instagram.

Which is alright, I agree.

But, here is where misinformation
is most likely to mimic true information,

to disguise like it.

And here is where the anchor
we were talking about before

gets spread.

How does this happen?

This is a real piece of news.

And this is misinformation,
what many people call,

I do not like this term
though, hoax news,

"fake news."

Because, when I say
something is fake news

I am not referring to the same as

when Donald Trump
says CNN is "fake news."

Because this is not news.
It has never seemed to be one.

It is just a disguise to misinform.

This is a very important thing
to keep in mind.

However, what do they have in common?

It seems they all have the same format
with their headline and a picture.

We do not have a reference that shows us
one is true and the other one is fake.

And we have to add
another problem to this:

every time we tend to consume more news
on its own, without any context.

Every time we spend less time
on the webpage of a mass media,

on its front page, to see
what they decided to be important

and we consume news
through what comes on social media:

through WhatsApp or Facebook.

Not knowing what kind of webpage
we are getting access to read,

or whether the resource
is reliable or not.

For instance: "Urdangarín
will have a payment in Switzerland

for his expenses."

That headline went viral.

There are many people that,
to this day, believe that, effectively,

the king's brother in law,
was condemned for corruption

and the Royal House
paid for his expenses.

Someone in this audience is probably
realising now that this was a lie.

Why did this happen?

Because this piece of news went viral
without context, without anchor.

We are going to show you
why this is so important.

If we see this news on the cover
of newspapers like El País o El Mundo,

we could think by the context,
by what surrounds it,

that this news is true.

it might be that the king's
brother in law, condemned,

was granted those privileges.

But, if we look at them here,
in their true origin,

where is this news coming from?

Precisely, from what is surrounding it,
because of the context it has around it,

there is something that makes us think
that it might be unreliable.

Well this has another twist.

Sometimes, we do not even read the news.

Sometimes, we just read
the headline and the picture.

And if we look at it like this?

We do not have any reference.
We do not know where it comes from.

We do not know its source.
We do not know its date.

We do not know
if it is reliable or not.

I will give you another example:

"Military service for people under 25
becomes compulsory again."

We get this through our phone.

It is a headline, a picture,
there is no link, and no date,

because it does not even have the year
and we do not know where it comes from.

Where is our mind situating this?

In a reliable web
or in a non reliable one?

What are our senses telling us?

We do not have context.
We do not have anchor.

And we add another key to this:
misinformation becomes democratised.

Do you know where
this headline comes from?

From here, from a web that was only made

for you to transform
your false rumour into news.

Power used to misinform,
it was the one who was able to do it:

economic elites, governments,

the big mass media, the church.

Now, with tools like this,
anyone can misinform.

And that is easier
and more dangerous every time.

Let's check why is that
these fakes news get made.

We have identified three reasons:

the first one is just pure evil,
it's just mere enjoyment.

Creating fake news
just to see how far they go,

how many people
they are able to convince.

And there are situations
where this becomes harmful.

Do you remember Frida Sofía,
the 12 year old girl

who was found buried under tons of debris
of a Mexican high school?

A whole country looking for her.

Mass media all over the world
were looking for her.

And it turned out
that the girl did not exist.

It was fake news.

It was news created

only for the purpose of generating chaos
in an emergency situation.

We have lived this in Spain.

In the fires of Galicia
and Asturias in 2017,

when the fire was almost reaching
Vigo townhouses,

and suddenly,
a warning popped up on media:

"Tap water cannot be ingested.
It is not drinkable. It is contaminated."

This was quickly viralised on WhatsApp
and it ended up being a false warning.

And notice that, it was not the only one.

This is a map of some misinformation
that were viralised

in a single fire night where neighbours,

who were fighting against the fire,

also fought against the fear

that this misinformation
were spreading through their phones.

This is very dangerous
and I can tell you that

if you happen to do something like this,
we are watching you.

Let's go to the second reason:
money; to make income.

Because there are people that earn money
by making fake content.

During American elections,

in Macedonia, a group of activists
started making fake news.

They started making them against Trump
and Hillary Clinton

and, very quickly, they realised that news
against Trump were not making any money,

so they decided to go for
Hillary Clinton.

And it worked.

They earned thousands of euros.

In Spain there are web pages
that do something similar:

they generate fake content
for people to visit their website

and in doing so
they charge for publicity.

And they say in the legal ad
that they are satire,

they just do it for fun.

Of course, sometimes they don't do it
to make fun out of it but to make money.

And there might be
a skeptic in the audience who says:

"And who are you to decide
what is satire and what is not?

Well we are none.

What we do is we only tell you
in the manuals about misinformation,

we have to look at the legal ad
from the web pages we read

before we believe them.

We tell you with our technological tools

that you are getting access
to a satiric webpage,

through our extension

and we make sure citizens get informed
as much as possible

to avoid a strain of lies.

And there is a third reason, which
I consider is the most dangerous:

the hoaxes made from ideologies.

The ones that are made
to distort our reality,

to create a particular state of opinion

that favours specific ideas.

We have lived this in Europe:
with Brexit,

with Cataluña, with the refugee crisis.

Who has not received a video
in the phone, an audio, an image,

a WhatsApp chain against immigration
in the last months?

These resent messages
between thousands of people,

sometimes look like they are reliable,

sometimes it is a headline and a picture,

but it does not have a source,
neither date nor anchor.

There are also headlines like this one:

"A family welcomes a refugee
who rapes their 12 year old daughter."

This headline is fake.

The man was not a refugee
and it did not live with the family.

And, even though, to this day,
this headline is still out there

and people who have read it
associate refugee with a rapist.

This is the ecosystem where we are
and it is very dangerous.

I just want to say one thing:

If some time you do not have
something clear, do not share it.

It is the best advise
I can give you today.

We are in an environment where fake news
can go from being simple lies

to become beliefs.

Misinformation soaks through

and people stop believing
in scientific evidence, for instance.

We see this in Italy
with the anti-vaccine movement

that is winning the battle
with the vice-president as their leader.

We start believing that Earth is flat.

We start arguing
that man has not reached the moon yet.

We start drinking raw milk.

But, how can we fight against this?

Well, legislation seems to be
a plausible solution.

There are some people who maintain
that a judge

or even a state dependent institution

is the one that should decide
what is truth and what is not.

We believe that this is not the way,

because the line between
an anti-hoax legislation

and censorship is excessively thin.

And we are not alone in this.

Experts from the European Commission,

a group of experts that set up months ago
where we are part of,

also believe we are not ready yet

to harshly legislate
against misinformation.

We do not know the phenomenon enough,
we need to keep studying it.

But we do have other tools
to fight against it.

For instance, with data
and fact journalism,

with early warning technology
against misinformation,

with the community,
with education and with you.

Because we need you to warn us
about possible misinformation

that is spreading in your networks.

Because we can't be everywhere,

even less during family chats
where more than once

you have spotted misinformation,

or in those closed Facebook groups where

memes of a right wing politician
are being posted,

or a meme of a left wing politician,

or from an actor or a historical figure,

which are tremendously problematic,
but do not have source or date.

When you give us that misinformation,

our team works
with a very strict methodology.

What things are becoming more viralised?

This is the first thing
we are going to try to find out.

from that point on,
it is journalism duty:

pick up the phone, talk to the sources,

verify the pictures and find out
the origin of all the videos.

And when this job is done and
we already know if it is a hoax or not

the whole team has to audit the checker,

and ask questions to know whether
he or she has done a good job or not.

And then we vote.

There has to be a majority of votes
supporting that denial

and none against it
for us to make sure and be ready

to go out there and tell you
that something is fake.

And there we need you once again,
because it has to be you

the ones who will come back
to our WhatsApp and Facebook groups

and will tell your contacts that in fact,

that information is not true,
it is a hoax.

Journalism, technology,
community and education

are the keys to be victorious.

Not everything is lost.

The journalists who want to do
our jobs well, exist.

And we are the majority.

We know you do not trust us anymore,

because we have failed sometime,
and we ask for a lot of forgiveness.

But from this, from misinformation,
they will not deceit neither with hoaxes,

nor the executive,

we just get out there together,
citizens and journalists.

Because journalism is the best tool
to fight against deceiving.

Thanks for listening.

(Applause)