The fight against fake news begins in the squares and streets

The Barcelona Provincial Council has presented a guide for local plans to combat disinformation. It's a timely tool, because we often talk about information manipulation as if it only occurs in the fizzy sands of social media, when the truth is that its toxicity often extends to the street level. Major state or regional policies to combat lies are always suspected of being tainted by partisan infighting. Local authorities, on the other hand, can take more effective, surgical action, and freer from the suspicion of wanting to in any way impact freedom of expression. In this sense, the guide provides clear, useful, and applicable guidelines: if implemented—and there should be no reason to prevent them—their impact can be more significant than major laws that often remain a solemn declaration of intent that are then difficult to implement without entering into undesirable quagmires.

If the promoters of the guide go ahead, it will also mean that communications technicians should have more power to obtain information from the local councils. In that sense, they can be a tool for democratic hygiene within local administrations. The plan to articulate different facilities (schools, centers, libraries...) in the fight against disinformation is also healthy. And this is fundamental. We know that a country with good media education will be better prepared to face the challenges of the future. But this culture of responsibility in communication cannot be only vertical: it will not work if a horizontal network of safe havens is not achieved in which factual, rigorous, honest, and free information is the standard. The fight against fake news It must begin in the streets, in the squares, in the courtyards and on the terraces.