Fake news about Covid-19: a comparative analysis of six Ibero-american countries

Introduction: Producers of misinformation and fake news find in fear, uncertainty in pandemic times, and virtual social networks facilitators for disseminating them, doing harder the task to detect them even for experts and laymen. Typologies designed to identify and classify hoaxes allow their analysis from theoretical perspectives such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, information manipulation, and cognitive dissonance. Method: A content analysis was developed with 371 fake news, previously verified by fact-checkers. After the intercoder test, it was proceeded to classify disinformation according to their type, intentionality, the main topic addressed, networks where they circulated, deception technique, country of origin, transnational character, among other variables. Results: The most common intent of fake news was ideological, associated with issues such as false announcements by governments, organizations, or public figures, as well as with false context elaboration technique. A quarter of the hoaxes analyzed were repeated in several countries, mainly promoting false cures with fabricated content as a deception technique. Discussion and Conclusions: Disinformation is a manipulation and filtering phenomenon based on ideological and emotional coincidence shared by those who circulate them. (Dis)information that converges with the users' interests, makes its dissemination indiscriminate, and facilitates its transnationality, with slight modifications, without affecting its acceptance and recirculation.