After the 2016 US presidential elections, the term ‘fake news’ became synonymous with disinformation and a catch-all term for the problems that social networks were bringing to communication. Four years later, there are dozens of empirical studies that have attempted to describe and analyse an issue that, despite still being in the process of definition, has been identified as one of the key COVID-19 cyberthreats by Interpol, is considered a threat to democracy by many states and supranational institutions and, as a consequence, is subject to regulation or even criminalization. These legislative and criminal policy interventions form part of the first stage in the construction of a moral panic that may lead to the restriction of freedom of expression and information. By analysing empirical research that attempts to measure the extent of the issue and its impact, the present article aims to provide critical reflection on the process of constructing fake news as a threat. Via a systematic review of the literature, we observe, firstly, that the concept of fake news used in empirical research is limited and should be refocused because it has not been constructed according to scientific criteria and can fail to include relevant elements and actors, such as governments and traditional media. Secondly, the article analyses what is known scientifically about the extent, consumption and impact of fake news and argues that it is problematic to establish causal relationships between the issue and the effects it has been said to produce. This conclusion requires us to conduct further research and to reconsider the position of fake news as a threat as well as the resulting regulation and criminalization.

在2016年美国总统大选之后，“假新闻”一词成为虚假信息的代名词，是社交网络将其带入沟通领域的问题的统称。四年后，有数十项实证研究试图描述和分析一个问题，尽管该问题仍处于定义过程中，但已被国际刑警组织确定为关键的COVID-19网络威胁之一，但仍被视为威胁许多国家和超国家机构实行民主制，因此受到管制，甚至被定为刑事犯罪。这些立法和刑事政策干预措施是建构道德恐慌的第一阶段的一部分，这可能会导致言论和信息自由受到限制。通过分析试图衡量问题严重程度及其影响的实证研究，本文旨在对构建虚假新闻作为威胁的过程提供批判性思考。通过对文献的系统回顾，我们观察到，首先，实证研究中使用的虚假新闻的概念是有限的，应该重新关注，因为它不是根据科学标准构建的，并且可能无法包括相关要素和参与者，例如作为政府和传统媒体。其次，文章分析了关于假新闻的范围，消费和影响的科学知识，并认为在问题和据说产生的后果之间建立因果关系是有问题的。