The type of disinformation that steals from you and other hoaxes from the 2nd quarter of 2021: new trend report "public policies so that thet don’t get you"

Keys

• In the second quarter of 2021 we have debunked almost 40 hoaxes that were actually scams and ‘phishing’ through SMS, email or social networks. We have been contacted by people who have lost up to €2,000
• The most shared hoaxes during the last electoral campaign in Madrid had to do with sending bullets and threats to members of the government, but they also «resurrected» old hoaxes that denounced electoral fraud without evidence.
•  Although the vaccination process is advancing, the number of hoaxes about vaccines continues to grow. We have received videos of the supposed «magnetism» they cause in more than a hundred different formats.

We also analyze the spectacular rise of hoaxes that are actually scams , such as those that promote false raffles for houses or luxury items on social networks, or those that want to steal your data by pretending to be the Post Office, your bank or the Tax Agency through SMS and email. We have just enabled an exclusive mailbox for this [email protected] and we do not stop receiving complaints from people who have lost up to €2,000 in some scam.

We also review the political hoaxes of the first quarter, starring above all those that were spread around the elections in the Community of Madrid on May 4. In addition to misinformation related to candidates and parties, we are particularly concerned about the «resurrection» of many hoaxes that denounce alleged electoral fraud without any evidence and delegitimize the democratic process.

During this quarter we have also experienced a new barrage of hoaxes about vaccination against the coronavirus, in particular the one that says that the vaccine gives «magnetism» and which we have seen in almost a hundred different videos . We also experienced the crisis on the Ceuta border with the massive passage of migrants, during which we saw organized networks that spread hoaxes to create panic: stabbings, rapes or burning of churches that never occurred but forced us to publish 16 denials in just one day

We also bring you a compilation of false phrases attributed to politicians and the latest data on information consumption through WhatsApp in Spain and its importance for understanding the phenomenon of misinformation in our country. This report is prepared every three months by our Public Policy and Institutional Development unit. You can contact them at [email protected]