Almost one in four fact checks of political discourse focuses on false claims that have been repeated, and each claim is repeated an average of four times. These are not isolated errors, but disinformation strategies.
While research on fact-checking has largely focused on its influence on public perception, its effects on politicians are less understood — particularly on how fact-checking motivates them to correct false claims or at least stop their spread. However, repeating false statements can have a more harmful effect on the audience and may suggest the speaker is spreading falsehoods on purpose.
These are some of the conclusions drawn from our recent study, “Combating Repeated Lies: The Impact of Fact-Checking on Persistent Falsehoods by Politicians.” The study was published in Media and Communication and developed as part of the Iberifier project, which studies disinformation in Spain and Portugal. The authors examined 1,204 fact-checked claims over a period of five years to identify notable trends.
Repeated false claims are increasingly common in political discourse, leading fact-checkers to adopt various strategies to combat recycled disinformation. Ahead of Spain’s regional elections on May 28, 2023, Spanish fact-checking organization Newtral flagged more than 30 repeated false claims that had been debunked multiple times. Similarly, in 2021, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker recorded over 55 false statements made by former U.S. President Donald Trump repeated at least 20 times, including one claim that resurfaced an astonishing 493 times.
We found that 24.8% of the political falsehoods debunked by Newtral involved repeated claims. This repetitive pattern suggests a deliberate strategy within political parties in which politicians prioritize maintaining a false narrative even when confronted. These claims show they are not simply occasional mistakes; they reflect a coordinated effort to fortify specific political positions.
Original claimants rarely repeat their falsehoods directly — only about 20% of the time — but other party members often echo these claims, showcasing their widespread dissemination.
To do so, political actors use tactics that blur the lines between deception and self-correction. We identified five distinct strategies used in political discourse to repeat these falsehoods.
The first is introducing nuanced variations. By slightly modifying or adapting numbers or context while maintaining the core falsehood, political actors maintain the same ideas.
For example, the following are all claims repeated over and over again in the months after the pandemic emerged:
- “100,000 companies have closed in this country”
- “We have lost 207,000 companies in the last six months”
- “During this period almost 104,000 companies have been forced to close”
- “(There are) 30,000 companies that disappeared in Spain from January to March 2022”
- “If we talk about companies, it turns out that since the pandemic we have lost 53,000 companies, and since Mr. Sánchez has been in office, 79,000 companies”
- “70,000 companies have disappeared since the pandemic”
- “Today we have, sir, 68,000 fewer companies than before the pandemic”.
And there are more.
Some of these examples also fall into the second strategy: data manipulation. This means presenting the same data but using different calculations or timeframes. For instance, data on the increase in public debt has been presented in various units of time, such as hours (“nine million euros every passing hour”), days (“200 million euros in new debt every day”) or months (“6,000 million euros every month”).
The third strategy relies on multilateral attacks, which reinforce a central falsehood by criticizing various aspects from different angles. This is the case of the following fact-checked claims: “False accusations (of gender violence) affect millions of Spaniards,” “the EU gives more money to those regions that have registered a higher number of (gender violence) complaints,” or “out of all the complaints of gender violence, 80% are dismissed because there is no evidence or clues.” While these cases don’t necessarily repeat similar claims and haven’t been counted as such, they contribute to a common narrative.
Discourse qualification, or focusing on a narrower aspect of a previously debunked claim, is another way to repeat ideas. For example, criticisms of inflation diversified to focus on core inflation, a specific type of price increase.
Finally, we found cumulative repetitions, which combine multiple verifiable claims within a broader statement, with each claim potentially previously debunked. This tactic reinforces a specific narrative, such as criticisms of a political party voting “against everything” beneficial to society.
In response, fact-checking organizations have developed various strategies to counter these frequently repeated false claims, such as boosting the visibility of such cases, using editorial tactics, or launching public campaigns urging politicians to correct their statements. A new approach revolves around using artificial intelligence models for claim matching, helping detect repeated claims early and enabling faster fact-checking responses.
Further research is needed to determine why some fact-checking efforts are more successful than others in preventing the repetition of false claims and to understand the political costs and benefits associated with disinformation campaigns.
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