VACCINATE: a project by Servimedia and Maldita.es to fight against hoaxes about vaccines that affect people with disabilities

In Spain there are almost 4 million people with disabilities, according to the National Statistics Institute. Of these, 1.8 million are of working age, but the rate of unemployment is double the national average.

In addition, they suffer from a third risk factor in the face of hoaxes: information barriers and the lack of accessibility to the content of many media for people who are blind, deaf or have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

For this reason, Maldita.es and Servimedia, which belongs to the ONCE Social Group, combine their knowledge and experience to detect hoaxes and create content aimed at combating the risk of disinformation for people with disabilities who usually suffer social and employment discrimination due to their physical and mental condition. or sensory.

These specific contents will be prepared using the Maldita.es verification methodology and will be distributed in television programs with subtitles and sign language interpreters, podcasts prepared for people with visual disabilities and videos with easy reading for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

This project also has the collaboration of the Spanish Society of Immunology, the Spanish Association of Vaccinology and the Spanish Society of Epidemiology. Their experts will contribute with their knowledge to the validation of the information and will participate in other dissemination activities.

This project is supported by the Google News Initiative, as part of the $3 million Open Fund it has launched to enable journalists to play a key role in combating misinformation about vaccines through more and better fact-checking.

The Servimedia and Maldita.es project was selected from 309 applications from 74 countries by a jury of experts and a team of 17 people. In this contest, 11 other projects were also awarded, including Chequeado, Africa Check, Agencia Lupa, La Diario, Factcheck.org, Univision and Verificat.cat, among others.

In addition to this project with Servimedia, Maldita.es is also part of the LatamChequea network coordinated by Chequeado and was also selected in this initiative to carry out a project for the elderly, indigenous populations and young people between 18 and 26 years old.

Founded in 1989, Servimedia is the leading news agency for social information in Spain. It belongs to the ONCE Social Group and produces more than 45,000 teletypes per year, which are distributed to the country’s main media, public institutions, large companies and third sector organizations. In addition, more than half of its employees are people with disabilities, a unique case of integration in the world.

Maldita.es is the first media specialized in fact-checking in Spain. Since 2018, it has signed the Code of principles of the International Fact-Checking Network and has around twenty journalists specialized in the fight against disinformation, science, data and media literacy.