The regeneration plan initiated by the central government will be materialized in several reforms that affect transparency, freedom of expression and the media. One of the aspects addressed is that of fake news, which will be addressed through a national strategy to combat disinformation campaigns or a commission on the matter in the Congress of Deputies. Before the presentation of this package of measures, the Galician PP tried, during the regional election campaign last February, to maneuver against the networks that spread false information. But their complaint was unsuccessful: the party claimed that a network of bots – which it linked to the opposition – was coordinating to lie from places like Russia, China, the Philippines or Haiti, but several of the users who were at the origin of the indicated accounts They responded by identifying themselves as a Catalan pensioner, a tweeter from Ourense or a “Galician worker” and they demanded that the popular apologize for their accusations.
The complaint was filed with the media by the secretary general of the Galician PP, Paula Prado, in mid-January, a month before the regional elections of February 18 and while criticism was intensifying over the management of the dumping of pellets on the Galician coast. The party assured that the complaint would also be filed with the prosecutor’s office, but never reported that this step had been taken. Prado assured that there had been an “organized operation of disinformation, lies, manipulation” and a “merciless attack” against the PP and against the Xunta. Once their complaints were disseminated, they assured that “by chance, many” had already disappeared from social networks. In reality, as elDiario.es verified at the time, two accounts ceased to exist. And several of the people identified expressed their surprise at having been included in a network of hoaxes.
The PP had relied on 15 screenshots from as many users of X (formerly Twitter) who, according to it, were spreading hoaxes. The comments contained in these stories gave negative opinions about the management of the Xunta and criticized the Galician government – especially, at the time, for the dumping of pellets that had affected the coast – and the PP, but there was no fake news. The owners of the accounts denied the locations attributed to them by the most popular ones. Another expert, Marcelino Madrigal, created a thread explaining why he considered the PP’s complaint absurd and the possible errors in the interpretation of the users’ locations.
The day after Paula Prado appeared before the media to talk about the “botafumeiro of hoaxes and lies”, Alfonso Rueda supported her and assured that an operation was underway in which “bots, those computer tools that allow, anonymity, confusion and false accounts, telling lies. His concern, he added, was not about the attacks on his party or his person, but rather “much more damaging hoaxes” regarding the fishing economic sector. At that time, the PP attacked the opposition for using an image of pellets taken from a photo bank – in the case of the BNG – or a photo of a fish with tiny plastic balls in its mouth taken in Sri Lanka – in the case of the PSDeG.
Rueda did not provide further evidence because, according to him, he had not carried out the study himself. But he added that they existed: “If it is said, logically there is evidence.” The PP did not go into them further either, beyond the captures presented at the first press conference.
