Fact-Checking in Venezuela: Navigating Authoritarianism, Media Collapse, and Economic Crisis to Counter Misinformation

Abstract

Fact-checkers operating in authoritarian contexts often encounter restricted access to public information, censorship, and other obstacles that hinder their efforts to combat misinformation. Given the scarce literature on fact-checking under authoritarian regimes, this study examines the challenges Venezuelan fact-checkers face and the strategies they use to navigate them. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with key experts (n = 6), the study identifies four primary constraints: political, operational, informational, and financial. Additionally, through quantitative content analysis of verification articles (n = 1178) published in 2022 by fact-checking units in four South American countries—Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—this study empirically and comparatively assesses the impact of these constraints on Venezuelan fact-checking practices. The findings demonstrate that Venezuela exhibits more political and media actors as sources of misinformation, reflecting its captured media landscape and repressive political system. To address the scarcity of domestic data, Venezuelan fact-checkers rely more on secondary sources, particularly NGOs and international documents, than their counterparts in other South American countries. To bypass government-imposed website blockades and censorship, they use strategies such as mirror sites, social media redirects, and secure messaging platforms to access crucial information in this autocratic media and political context.