The Fake news and public speech verification strategies Case of Ecuador Chequea

Abstract

At present, people have free access to information and live in parallel the era of misinformation, which seems to take a bad possession of journalism. The new technologies also served to spread false news around the world and at a dizzying speed, where any content with the appearance of verified news is capable of generating a high level of impact on society. It seems contradictory to admit that the knowledge society and misinformation inhabit the same era; however, this article clarifies this paradox. Faced with this problem, Ecuador Chequea was founded, a 'fact checking' portal, which seeks to dismantle false news and reveal corroborated information to the public. In this article, this portal is studied, public speech verification strategies are shown, and important fake news events that have generated great impact at national and international level are highlighted. It is a qualitative research based on interviews with the general editor of Ecuador Chequea.