“You can no longer even take drugs quietly at Easter.” With these words, former Vice President Pablo Iglesias settled the controversy sparked by a photo with Irene Montero that sparked the imagination of many users who saw a line of cocaine on what was, in reality, the zipper tape of a bag.
“You have to take it with humor,” Iglesias pointed out in statements to RAC1, and in turn called for reflection on the normalization of fake news.
“It is normalizing that lies can be acceptable informative political material,” he said, after pointing out that if it had not been denied, it could have been a topic to be discussed in programs such as Ana Rosa, Espejo Público or Al Rojo Vivo.
The former vice president has accused some sectors of the extreme right of making use of false information. “They don’t care if it’s a lie. They already assume it as political material to use, and I think this is part of a dynamic that has normalized against certain political options.”
Iglesias has warned that this type of behavior reflects “some levels of degradation both of democracy and of a good part of journalism, which clearly enters to buy these things. It is enormously dangerous.”
In addition, the former vice president has made reference to the risk that Artificial Intelligence could entail in the dissemination of fake news. “If we add to this the implications that artificial intelligence is going to have, that anything can be built… The effect that an image creates beyond whether that is true or not tells us about a society that gives a lot fear.” And he has insisted: “The extreme right is basically based on that: on an attempt to normalize lies by the media.”
