A February 1st post brings alarming “news” to say the least: “Portugal is the 33rd most corrupt country in the world. The causes? Political and other spheres. The author touches on one of the hottest topics on the country’s media agenda without, however, sharing the information on which he bases his statement. It is, however, a false publication.

Since there is no credible graph, study, report, or news story in this post, your best bet is to understand how the author came to that conclusion. The most widely used report is the International Transparency Index (Corruption Perceptions Index), which annually publishes data on corruption around the world.

The most important issue to take into account —and which probably helped the author create a fake publication— is that the ranking presented goes from the least corrupt country (Denmark), which is number one, to the most corrupt country. corrupt, in position 180 (to Somalia). That is, the scale goes from zero (which is not considered corrupt) to 100. As for Portugal, it appears in 33rd place, that is, less corrupt, ahead of countries like Spain or Poland, which are part of the same space. . European.

Despite this verification, the truth is that, for example, in 2019 Portugal had risen to 30th place in that ranking. In other words, it has deteriorated since then, according to Transparency International.

Conclusion

It is not true that Portugal is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, the country is currently ranked 33rd in a table topped by Denmark. The author manipulates this same ranking to make it appear that Portugal is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Despite this, it is true, although this is not the author’s claim, that the country has worsened its corruption ranking in recent years.

Thus, according to the Observer classification system, this content is:

MISTAKEN

In the Facebook rating system this content is:

FAKE: Main content claims are factually inaccurate. This option generally corresponds to “fake” or “mostly fake” ratings on fact check sites.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook.