Challenges of information in front of fakenews in coronavirus times

Abstract

The disease caused by the new coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is the first pandemic in history, in which technologies and social networks are being used on a large scale to make people productive and keep them safe. However, against that statement, there is also the spread of fake news, the so-called fake news. In this sense, the present work has as general objective, to study the spread of fake news in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The specific objectives are: a) to identify sites that are dedicated to denying false news; b) verify the type of presentation of the information checked; c) analyze the nature of the information conveyed and checked and; d) find out if the sites mention the sources of information that validate or not what was published. The nature of the research is qualitative and content analysis was the technique defined for the treatment of the collected data. Thus, for this study, information on coronavirus was analyzed on three sites designed to check information suspected of being fake news: Fato or Fake, E-Farsa and Boatos.org. The results demonstrate that there is a spread of fake news on several sites on the internet, harming the population in providing adequate information about the disease, spread and prevention of the coranavirus.