Delegate: Edgar Fabián Lióner Rocha

School: ITESM Campus Santa Anita

Committee: General Assembly 2
Topic B: The use of fake news and yellow journalism
as a political weapon
Country: México

After the alleged influence of Russian hacking affecting the United States’ elections

result [About 1000 bots] and the shift of interests of companies to flag misleading ads; this topic

has gained a lot of attention lately. México has been aware of fake news as a serious issue for a

while now, and has taken action in said problem. The National Electoral Institute (INE in

Spanish) started a campaign in collaboration with Facebook, Twitter and Google aimed to lessen

the amount of Fake News and battle it with official information at the same time

[#Verificado2018].​“We are going to ask all the social networks to let us publish official

information” ​(Andrade,2018) [Board Member of INE ] One clear example of this is when all the

presidential debates were broadcasted // live streamed on said, free of charge platforms.

In México’s case, there is yellow journalism in both types of media: Verificado 18, the

previously mentioned initiative works in coalition with several papers such as “Animal Político”,

“​El Diario de Yucatán​”, “​Milenio​” amongst others, to spread completely unbiased news; since

most big papers have admitted receiving payments from individuals to boost a certain political

view, these practices often are not registered as “direct transactions”, and therefore are hard to

find. In the case of Digital media, fake news are even more present, with chain messages

flooding messaging applications such as whatsapp and messenger and fake articles at an
alarming rate in Facebook; the main issue found with digital media is that, if classical yellow

journalism is already hard to track, when it comes to digital yellow journalism, it is nearly

impossible to pinpoint the origin of said news.

Institutions such as the Procurators’ Office of Puebla, Hidalgo, Durango, Jalisco, Sinaloa

and Yucatan, have ongoing campaigns aimed at stopping chains of messages that consist of

people sharing the message loaded with misinformation to a significant amount of their contacts

regardless of the validity of the information in question.

México is a dangerous place for journalists, but its not mainly from governmental

oppression, nor to guide political ideas, the dangerous situation for mexican journalists was born

since the war on drugs was started by former mexican president Felipe Calderón. Adding to this

fact there is also the fact that paid // promotional political articles are on the rise. On the other

hand, yellow journalism // fake news: or journalism that has no well researched information and

resorts to flashy headlines as bait to attract the reader into misleading fake “facts”.

As Frederic Filloux, editor of an online news and publishing house: “​Fighting fake news

is a losing battle​”(Filloux,2018) In México 8 out of 10 citizens are worried about the impact and

presence of fake news. 77% of Mexicans (which took part in a poll) think that media outlets are

more interested in having a greater audience rather than actually sharing factual, reliable, well

researched news.

In México, fake news were spread by shady organizations all throughout the presidential

campaigns, debates and even the day of the election in hopes to shift the people’s vote. Fake

news have also been used to discredit organizations and boycott companies, with various

amounts of success. In the case of the elections; the government has little to no ability to
intervene. “​The Electoral National Institute is an organism dependent on society itself, on the

credibility of sources; which is based on truthful explanation and stability of official

information.” (​ Córdova,2018)

The most efficient practices to stop fake news are found in: Germany: with imposed

fines to social media companies that fail to remove illegal content from their sites, such as hate

speech after said content has been reported. France: A law in the process of being being passed

that allows the government to take “emergency legal action” and take down fake content or even

temporarily block the website uploading it. China: Beijing Internet Police that assures that

articles have not only a reliable source but also that it doesn’t include “rumors”. México:

Verificado 18, Google // Facebook // Twitter // State and private effort to detect fake news, verify

accurate information and spread official data during times of need.

In México’s case, shutting down or blocking misleading articles during presidential

elections would violate article 6 and 7 of the constitution unless the fake news violate and disrupt

public order, but fining them if they do not show reliable sources wouldn’t and therefore could

be implemented. Expanding the places where Verificado 18 can work (it can’t reach whatsapp

yet) as well as the funding is another effective way to fight yellow journalism. Adding to the

already coalition made by the mexican government, following the lines of India and Beijing

would create great benefits. Finally, pushing google to remove even more misleading ads would

clean digital media drastically since out of the 12 sources used for research, which are relatively

reliable and have a trustworthy name: As a source of income: 6 have misleading ads // articles

(could potentially and mostly do lead to fake news), 3 have a paywall system, 1 has parent

companies and different areas of income and 3 are actually free. (There is 1 overlap)
Sources:

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