Spain's PSOE paid for 14 ads against Mazón, then deleted them

In late October 2024, with the DANA still battering Valencia, the battle over the narrative had already begun. Reporting by ABC revealed that Spain's PSOE (the governing Socialist Party) had published at least 14 sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram targeting regional premier Carlos Mazón for reacting too late, and then removed them. The detail matters: this is no ordinary hoax, but one with an advertising budget and an expiry date, deleted to leave no trace. According to the same outlet, National Security had warned La Moncloa (the Prime Minister's office) twelve hours before the storm that "very heavy storms" were expected.

The budget of lies: ads that are bought and vanish

The revelation peine a war of interpretations. For some, the governing party's campaign merely warned about hoaxes and real coordination failures; for others, the ad buy shows that disinformation is not just a far-right phenomenon, but a tool paid for with resources and designed with electoral criteria. In a scenario where managing the economic catastrophe – reconstruction, aid, insurance – depended on consensus, the injection of suspicion ended up entangling the debate. "Truth disappeared when social communism arrived," argues one side; "the only hoax is the one spread by the regime," replies the other.

From RTVE to the studios: the hoax as spectacle

The front is not limited to social media. The accusation that RTVE, Spain's public broadcaster, spread the hoax about US Defence Secretary Trump's "neo-Nancy" tattoos – later clarified as actually contradictory – pitted critics of the public broadcaster against defenders of its editorial line. "Free and independent on the payroll of the party that funds them," the most sceptical conclude. And in the battle for audiences, the photo of Irene Montero as a possible signing for Risto Mejide's "Todo es mentira" ("Everything is a lie") turned the show's very name into an irony: the antidote to lies feeds on politics, and politics shows no mercy. Some forecasts already predict the signing will not lift the ratings. Risto is going to lose audience.

The economy of suspicion

More questions than answers remain on the table. How much does it cost to buy 14 ads and then delete them? Why was a National Security warning not enough to trigger the alarm earlier? The only consensus is that the hoax has become an industry with its own market rules: it is produced, distributed, monetised in audience figures and, when it becomes inconvenient, pulled from the shop window. Public investment in communication became a weapon, and meanwhile the DANA victims kept waiting for answers. The mutual suspicion between Moncloa and the opposition was not resolved then; and, judging by how the narrative evolves, it has not been resolved since.