A week ago, I was doing interviews for radio and print media about the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo’s (CPI) campaign to educate about fake news and misinformation in the electoral context.
Of all the responses I expected to get from that media tour, the one I never anticipated was that I would become the subject of a fake news story by unscrupulous and unskilled people who hide behind anonymity to perpetrate their misdeeds.
Just as Tropical Storm Ernesto was beginning to move north across the Atlantic, I started receiving several messages from people I knew who were sending me photos of their cell phone screens with fake news stories with my picture and name on Instagram and Facebook created to deceive and misinform.
It’s a textbook case. We used this opportunity to show how it works and give tips to identify fake news.
First, the link to the “news story,” which has the logo of the El Nuevo Día newspaper and points to a crazy and unknown website kreativstormkey.com. I suggest not visiting it. Here are some screenshots.
Second, the headline of the story is alarmist, bordering on absurd. It says: “The Banco Central de Puerto Rico sues Carla Minet for statements she made on live television.”
Suffice it to say that there is no such thing as the Banco Central de Puerto Rico, nor have I been sued.
And when reading the story, it is evident that it is an incoherent and nonsense text written using artificial intelligence. It even mentions that I recommended an online platform for Puerto Ricans to earn easy money.
What to do? First, I asked the people who had written to me to report the story as fake news on the Instagram and Facebook platforms. It’s a simple and quick thing to do. They all did it. The second thing was to identify the information available about the website that published the false information. By searching for the origin of the web address, we were able to identify an email to which reports of abuse can be sent. That’s what I did, they sent me a complaint number, and said they would investigate, but the fake story is still there.
In doing a deeper dive, our team was able to identify that the misinformation campaigns were created by a company registered in Iceland, with an IP address in Canada, and that a payment was made to create the campaigns in social media.
In many parts of the world, journalists are often the target of this type of disinformation campaign, and are exposed to insults, threats, and bullying or harassment on social media. Although it’s something that we’ve tried to normalize, it’s no less true that it is an attack on people’s dignity, because it usually ridicules them and tries to belittle and project them in a way that is wrong or contrary to their values. It is also an attempt to discredit, confuse and affect reputations, without doing so up front or being subject to scrutiny. This must be taken seriously: act, report and move on.
The truth is that you must be thick-skinned, as they say, to keep walking with your head held high and not allow these people to achieve their goal.
If you see this misinformation campaign, please report it.
If you would like to support the CPI’s work on education on disinformation in the electoral context, you can do so here, at the closing of our fundraising campaign.
Let’s not let these disinformation agendas win.
