The reaction of the 'fact-checkers' to the Sánchez government's hoax about the UN

@ElentirENG ES 5·06·2024 · 7:01 0

On Friday I spoke here about the hoax launched by the socialist newspaper El País stating that the UN rejects the concord laws of PP and Vox.

The truth about the hoax that says that the UN rejects the Spanish concord laws
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This hoax is no longer attributable exclusively to the PRISA Group newspaper. On Friday, the website of La Moncloa, the presidency of the Spanish government, spread that hoax, collecting statements from the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, in those who criticized those laws stating that "it is not from the Government of Spain nor do I say it, but rather the UN says it." Yesterday, Torres used a visit to the Mathausen concentration camp to spread that hoax again, a low behavior on the part of a minister.

As they say now, you are very young, but I remember that four years ago there were entities that were dedicated to verifying news on social networks, pointing out the hoaxes that were spread through them. In Spain there were and still are three fact-checkers: Maldita.es, Newtral and Efe Verifica, the latter dependent on the Efe agency, which is owned by the government of Spain, that is, the same government that is disseminating that hoax about the UN.

At the time of publishing these lines, Efe Verifica and Maldita.es they haven't said anything about that hoax. Three days have already passed, but from what it seems, the fact that the government is spreading a hoax at the highest level does not seem to be a reason to say anything about it. Newtral has published a news item about it , affirming the same thing I pointed out here on Friday:

From the UN they explain to Newtral.es that “the rapporteurs are independent experts who make this type of reports voluntarily”, so this type of documents “do not express a position” of the United Nations. “Then the reports are taken into account and may reach other bodies, but they are not a resolution” of the international organization, they point out.

Thus, Newtral knows that the government is being untrue when it attributes this rejection of the concordia laws to the UN, but unlike what it does when it comes to the opposition, This fact-checking entity avoids talking about hoaxes and omits any criticism of the government for affirming this falsehood. This should come as no surprise to anyone, considering that the founder and sole shareholder of Newtral is Ana Pastor, a journalist known for her affinity towards the left-wing. This should lead us to ask ourselves a very simple question about this type of entities: who verifies the verifiers and who ensures that their work is not biased?

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Photo: La Moncloa. Ana Pastor, director of Newtral, with Pedro Sánchez during a visit to the La Moncloa palace for an interview on September 16, 2018.