Aos Fatos, a pioneer in fact-checking in Brazil, went live on July 7, 2015, with a mission to restore dialogue between institutional politics and society. Its debut editorial pointed to a brewing communication crisis and warned: “Something is wrong when everyone is willing to speak, but few are willing to listen.”
A decade later, Aos Fatos operates in a country hyperdependent on digital platforms—whether for consumption, communication, connection, work, or politics. According to the TIC Domicílios survey, 84% of Brazilians aged ten or older—about 159 million people—have internet access; of those, 96% go online daily. Ten years ago, 66% said they had accessed the internet, with 82% doing so daily.
Aos Fatos was launched at the turning point between mass political rhetoric—shaped by major TV campaigns and national radio and television broadcasts—and segmented, asynchronous, algorithm-driven communication. Over its decade of existence, it has witnessed the consolidation of disinformation as a tool of power and the progressive erosion of public trust in institutions like the press, science, the judiciary, and even the very notion of authority and knowledge. Aos Fatos was forged in the trenches of real-time communication, the pandemic, the fight against authoritarianism, and the institutional collapse that culminated in the January 8 attacks.
In this context, fact-checking has evolved from a peripheral journalistic practice into an essential tool for countering the erosion of democratic life. Over the past decade, Aos Fatos has carried out more than 19,000 fact-checks—roughly 15,000 of which verified the accuracy of statements from 167 public figures, while nearly 4,000 debunked social media hoaxes.
It has developed real-time monitoring methodologies for misleading narratives, documented and reported false campaigns, and shared its disinformation databases with over 40 research groups in Brazil and abroad. It has partnered with institutions like the Supreme Federal Court and the Superior Electoral Court, and its data contributed to the findings of the Senate’s Covid-19 Inquiry and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the January 8th Attacks. Aos Fatos has also assisted the Public Prosecutor’s Office in investigations ranging from selling fake vaccination certificates to fabricating forged documents used against candidates during elections. More than disproving falsehoods, Aos Fatos has always sought to confront the systems that produce, distribute, and legitimize lies as a political method.
The Fallacy of Censorship
Still, the false narrative persists that fact-checking is censorship. This discourse—most often echoed by politicians and influencers who spread lies—ignores a fundamental point: fact-checking doesn’t prohibit speech; it demands accountability for what is claimed as truth.
Fact-checking doesn’t silence, ban, or block. It is a form of journalism, not a form of control. Censorship, in contrast, is the authoritarian silencing of the very journalism Aos Fatos practices—and has suffered over the last decade through judicial harassment and repeated attempts to forcibly remove content, even when all of it was based on verifiable facts. During this time, Aos Fatos has had its newsroom surveilled, its journalists harassed, and was one of the targets of the so-called “Parallel Abin” (Brazil's shadow intelligence network).
These attacks have been enabled by the same digital platforms that serve as both essential channels for journalism support and funding, and facilitators of harassment and hate. The most striking example of this contradiction came on January 7, 2025, when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly attacked the fact-checkers his company had worked with for nearly a decade, whose knowledge the same company validated into transparency reports submitted to authorities like Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court and the European Union.
Fact-checking is a central tool for preserving the integrity of information in digital environments. As published in Nature, fact-checking effectively reduces misleading perceptions of reality. A study conducted across four countries between 2020 and 2021 showed that exposure to fact-checks significantly reduced false beliefs. A 2019 meta-analysis of the method’s effectiveness also found a positive influence on political beliefs in a study involving over 20,000 people.
According to the Digital News Report 2025 from the Reuters Institute, Brazil is among the countries most concerned with digital disinformation: 67% of respondents say they worry about distinguishing between what is real and fake in the news, and 36% say they turn to fact-checking services when in doubt—a figure well above the global average of 25%.
This shows that seeking the truth is insufficient if the systems governing digital information flows do not reward it. Fact-checks must be produced but also welcomed, shared, and valued. The effort to discredit this method only serves those who profit from the hostile experience many platforms now offer—treating it as a natural byproduct of free speech.
Digital Scams and AI: The Future Is Already Here
Over the last ten years, it has become clear that the disinformation problem extends beyond political rhetoric. If defending democracy sounds too abstract to some social groups, other, more tangible scams are at play. The pandemic decade accelerated the digitization of banking and remote services and fueled a sophisticated digital fraud industry.
Of the 60 fact-checks Aos Fatos has published on scams of this type, 50 were produced since 2023—a 173% increase from 2023 to 2024. To deceive users on social media, scammers hijack news-related themes to promote fake benefits and fundraising campaigns, aiming to steal money and personal data. Many of these fraudulent posts use AI-generated videos featuring the likeness and voice of politicians or celebrities to lend credibility and authority. These clips lead users to phishing sites or fraudulent payment platforms in just seconds.
This era is defined by the blurred line between what’s real, artificial, or fabricated. AI has emerged as a productivity tool for scammers and disinformation agents, with deepfakes and fake celebrity videos being just new variations of familiar electoral deception tactics.
The automated production of short videos from public content—a strategy used last year by São Paulo mayoral candidate Pablo Marçal (PRTB), as reported by Aos Fatos—is likely to become more common. AI tools can now scan public speeches, generate video edits with captions, and publish them at an industrial scale.
This highlights a central dilemma in the information economy: the more content is available—including easier access to legislative broadcasts, audiovisual archives, and public databases—the more that content can be clipped, distorted, and reinterpreted with generative technology. In other words, information abundance doesn’t curb disinformation; it may increase it, sometimes exponentially. The challenge now is to develop public policies, regulatory frameworks, and support for journalism that ensure the digital traces of ordinary users aren’t turned against them as tools of manipulation and distortion of shared reality.
Journalism as Civic Infrastructure
Key events show what’s at stake. The assassination of councilwoman Marielle Franco (PSOL), undermined for years by conspiracy theories spread by authorities; the January 8 attacks, mobilized by a web of lies supported by military actors, monetized live streams, and the capture of journalism; and the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, where politicians used disinformation for self-promotion while lives were at risk—all these episodes reveal that lying is not a deviation but a strategy of state, market, and platform.
The cultural impact of platforms throughout life has created an incentive system that rewards distraction and punishes reflection. Today, everything comes with a perk: credit cards offer cashback, likes release serotonin, fitness apps give out medals, and streaming services flood users with entertainment options. But understanding the facts requires time, energy, and a willingness to engage in conflict.
Social media, meanwhile, fosters a false sense of intimacy between users and public figures. On these platforms, people can buy clothes, food, cosmetics, games—and political engagement. The anxieties caused by the absence of the state—such as insecurity, precarious work, delays in unemployment benefits, or shortages of vaccines and medicines—are not resolved through the theatrical presence of authorities in carefully scripted live broadcasts.
In this environment—where lies masquerade as opinion and performance becomes a political weapon—fact-checking endures as a radical act. The deliberate act of verification interrupts the viral logic of impulse and emotion.
Defending journalism in this context is not an exercise in nostalgia but a democratic imperative. Aos Fatos develops ethical technology, builds AI systems with qualified parameters to curb disinformation, and provides intelligence to support public policy. It’s essential to expose the mechanics of lies, confront the systems that promote them, and uphold journalism as civic infrastructure.
Persistence in this work is our form of resistance. Aos Fatos remains committed to fostering trust in journalism and democratic institutions despite the chaotic information landscape, so democracy is not merely a performance but a continuous practice.
