Los fact-checkers iberoamericanos frente a la COVID-19. An\'alisis de actividad en Facebook / The Ibero-American fact-checkers facing the COVID-19. Analysis of activity on Facebook

TL;DR

This study analyzes Facebook activity of Ibero-American fact-checkers during the early COVID-19 pandemic, revealing high engagement with COVID-related content, especially links, and highlighting the role of emotional reactions in user interactions.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of social media engagement patterns of fact-checkers during COVID-19, focusing on content types, interactions, and emotional responses.

Findings

COVID-related posts received more reactions and comments.

Links generated more interactions than videos or images.

Emotional reactions influenced sharing and commenting behavior.

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed infodemics as an aggravating factor in health emergencies, a situation that enhanced the role of data verification journalism in crisis situations. This article aims to know the dynamics of publication and interaction on Facebook of the international fact-checking group LatamChequea Coronavirus during the first two months after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the WHO (March 11, 2020 - May 11, 2020). Methodology: The contents, metadata and reactions generated in a total of 5736 posts published by 31 different fact-checkers were collected with Crowdtangle and analyzed. Results: Among the most shared publications, those related to the COVID-19 generated more reactions and comments than those referring to other topics; the volume of shares is high in relation to other generally more frequent interactions and publications that include links achieved more interactions of all kinds than those based on videos or images. There are positive correlations between the number of likes and the number of shares, and between the angry reaction and the number of comments. Discussion and conclusions: The relevance of sharing in the set of interactions would indicate a high interest of the users to share the denials about fake news, something that distances from previous referenced investigations. The results also point to the influence of the emotional reaction expressed in the interaction with the content in the form of sharing or commenting.