Checking agencies criticize Lula’s action on fake news – 03/28/2023 – Politics

Fact-checking agencies accuse the Lula government (PT) of “misappropriation” and “politicization of the fight against disinformation” for the launch of the BrasilContraFake website, supposedly for fact-checking, by the Presidency’s Social Communication Secretariat last Saturday (25) .

In a tweet on Sunday (26), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva characterized the initiative as a “platform for checking information and fighting misinformation”. “Brazil has suffered a lot from lies on social networks in recent years. We need to strengthen a network of truth. The @govbr launched this week a platform for checking information and combating misinformation.”

For fact checkers, there is no fact-checking done by the government, because the process necessarily needs to be independent and non-partisan. And the site does not follow the basic principles of checking, such as indicating where the information used in the checks was taken from and what is the methodology used to determine the veracity, in addition to having transparency in the process of choosing the content to be checked.

“We have reservations about this initiative. We don’t know if this platform will adopt the criteria of the IFCN (International Fact-Checking Network), which guides the work of checking agencies around the world”, says Alexandre Gimenez, responsible for UOL Confere. “There is also an ethical issue involved, as part of the job of a fact-checking agency is to verify information released by the government itself.”

Agência Lupa points out that some “verified” contents are, in reality, government “clarification” notes.

In a publication on the increase in deforestation in February, says Lupa, the government confirms that the data are true (without presenting any link to the relevant databases on the subject), but says that “environmental public policies are marked by the effectiveness of medium and long term, and not immediate”. “That is, the note only tries to exempt the government from responsibility for the current results”, says the agency.

“This is not fact-checking, it is government communication advice”, says Daniel Bramatti, editor of Estadão Verify. “The government has the right to clarify misinformation about public policies, but this is not checking, we do not want a Fakebras, a state view of what is fact and what is not.”

The platform also conveys denials of false reports related to the government, such as the rumor that the Executive would have determined the closure of the floodgates of the São Francisco transposition, but does not point to the original sources in which the correct version could be found.

By denying the false claim that Lula would have been prevented from entering the presidential plane and the Alvorada Palace, the site uses Secom itself as a source, saying: “That fake news Bolsonarists feed the illusions of their followers is anti-democratic and disrespectful to those who publicize this lie.”

In addition, BrasilContraFake also presents content based on verifications of the fact-checking sites Fato ou Fake, Aos Fatos and Lupa, with reference and direct link. But some of them were not even consulted.

“This is a misappropriation of the concept of fact-checking and the content of checkers”, says Natália Leal, executive director of Agência Lupa, whose checks were cited without authorization.

For Leal, the government website will create confusion about what fact-checking is, in addition to weakening truth-checkers.

“It is contradictory for a government that has treated the fight against disinformation as a priority to make this politicization of the fight against disinformation”, says the executive director of Lupa.

According to Paulo Pimenta, Minister of Secom, the platform’s intention was never to be a fact-checking agency or compete with fact-checkers. “We are just gathering clarification of false information about various ministries and government measures. We do not carry out verification, not least because we are government, we are not exempt”, he told the Sheet.

Asked about the platform touting itself as an “information check”, he said Secom might adjust the name to something like “information checking” to eliminate confusion.

Regarding the unauthorized use of the checkers’ content, Pimenta says that the site only cites the checks as sources and gives credit. “We recognize the importance of the work of checkers, who perform a service of public utility.”