Offensive and hateful communication or programmed disinformation?An analysis of the characteristics and discourse of the #ExposeBillGates conspiracy event

First, some electoral processes and then the COVID-19 crisis have brought offensive and dangerous disinformation events in social media into the spotlight. This research analyses an event concerning disinformation and the launch and dissemination of the hashtag #ExposeBillGates, through the 183,016 tweets that used this hashtag during its period of activity in June 2020. Through network analysis and by processing the content of the messages through text mining, it was observed that the size of the event was highly dependent on the participation of a small number of accounts, and some violent and abusive communication was found, although not hate speech. The need to deeply study the relations-hip between two macro communicative phenomena of a different nature, but more intertwined in their "problematic" origin than may appear, is discussed.

Misinformation about fake news: A systematic critical review of empirical studies on the phenomenon and its status as a ‘threat'

After the 2016 US presidential elections, the term ‘fake news' became synonymous with disinformation and a catch-all term for the problems that social networks were bringing to communication. Four years later, there are dozens of empirical studies that have attempted to describe and analyse an issue that, despite still being in the process of definition, has been identified as one of the key COVID-19 cyberthreats by Interpol, is considered a threat to democracy by many states and supranational institutions and, as a consequence, is subject to regulation or even criminalization. These legislative and criminal policy interventions form part of the first stage in the construction of a moral panic that may lead to the restriction of freedom of expression and information. By analysing empirical research that attempts to measure the extent of the issue and its impact, the present article aims to provide critical reflection on the process of constructing fake news as a threat. Via a systematic review of the literature, we observe, firstly, that the concept of fake news used in empirical research is limited and should be refocused because it has not been constructed according to scientific criteria and can fail to include relevant elements and actors, such as governments and traditional media. Secondly, the article analyses what is known scientifically about the extent, consumption and impact of fake news and argues that it is problematic to establish causal relationships between the issue and the effects it has been said to produce. This conclusion requires us to conduct further research and to reconsider the position of fake news as a threat as well as the resulting regulation and criminalization. © The Author(s) 2021.