Combating misinformation in the post-truth era: An analysis of fake news about migrants

The concept of post-truth refers to the prioritisation of personal opinions and convictions over factual truths in decision-making processes. The concept gained popularity after the 2016 US elections that brought Donald Trump to the presidency. Trump, who was accused of lying without hesitation in front of the masses and was frequently criticised in this regard, won the elections, which was interpreted as a sign that the society had entered a period in which facts had lost their value. Similar to fake news, another growing problem in recent years is forced displacement. The number of people around the world who have to leave their places of residence for compelling reasons is increasing day by day. This study analyses misinformation about migrants in Turkey through dogrula.org, dogrulukpayi.com and teyit.org platforms. In the application phase of the study, two separate qualitative content analyses were applied to the posts of the verification platforms about migrants and the reader comments on these posts. The results reveal that misinformation is mostly disseminated on social media, through internet users, political actors and journalists, and that this misinformation is related to widespread migrant stereotypes. The findings from the analysis of reader comments in the study reveal that readers have a highly negative view of both fact-checking platforms and migrants. Readers' rejection of the results of fact-checks, despite the evidence presented, reflects the characteristics of the post-truth era, where personal convictions override factual truths, as well as the backfire effect.