He Barcelona’s town hall has filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office a civil guard and a national police officer for disseminating on social networks a fake news (falsified news) that maintains that the mayoress, Ada Colauhas allowed register to 1,600 North Africans on a single floor so that they receive social assistance in exchange for their votes.
This message circulates through Whatsapp and other social networks. Not only is it false, but it questions the democratic system, accusing it of electoral fraud, and attacks migrants.
Respond to a strategy #FakeNews and global and organized disinformation that has arrived in BCN. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/QaRLdScnYt
— Marc Serra Sole (@MarcSerraSole) March 16, 2023
Specifically, the complaint identifies four Twitter accounts that posted the fake news and which are managed by, among others, an agent of the Civil Guard and a police inspectoras well as a member of the far-right independence group Identity Movement Catalan (MIC).
The message, massively shared and which has added tens of thousands of views on Twitter, WhatsApp and other social networks, warning of a “new scandal of the mayoress of Barcelona and her government team”.
“A few days ago, the Civil Guard entered a flat in the Horta-Guinardó area because there were 1,600 registered residents of North African origin on that floor. 1,600 registered on a single floor”added the message, which specified that when the agents entered the property they discovered that only five people resided in it.
According to the text, which warned that this information had not been published by any media, the padrón gave right to the other 1,595 maghrebis to collect “all the aid that the city council gives” and to vote by mail in the next municipal elections.
“If Colau wins the next municipal elections, he will be able to start thinking about where the votes come from. Barcelona and Catalonia are drowning in a sewer of corruption and the citizens are totally defenseless”, adds the denounced message.
In a statement, the City Council maintains that, in addition to the “undoubted slanderous content towards the mayoress of Barcelona”, the hoax supposes a “incitement to hatred, rancor and animosity towards the Maghrebi community in Morocco because of their reason of origin”, by attributing to them “directly and massively the commission of a scam that affects all citizens”.
In addition to the four profiles identified, the complaint points to indications that “automated bots” to viralize the reported messages.
The complaint maintains that the facts “they cannot be protected by the right to freedom of expression”since they clearly and explicitly imply contempt and humiliation for the Maghrebi and Moroccan community”, in addition to including “discriminatory messages” and promote violence against foreigners.
