U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro joined a coalition of Latino organizations to warn about rampant misinformation targeting Spanish speakers ahead of the election and to call on social media companies to do more to curb the spread of falsehoods aimed at Latinos.
Researchers say disinformation has been targeted at and particularly salient among Latino communities.
The stream of falsities has been so consistent that a Spanish fact-checking website, Factchequeado, was launched earlier this year to combat misinformation targeting Hispanic and Latino communities in the U.S. The website’s managing editor, Tamoa Calzadilla, said Thursday that there’s been a significant uptick in “propaganda” in recent months, including conspiracies about the Internal Revenue Service and comparisons of President Joe Biden to communist Latin American dictators.
Meanwhile, racist and violent rhetoric about Latino communities has also flourished and helped prompt acts of mass violence, including the killing of 23 people at an El Paso Walmart by a gunman who was radicalized in part by online conspiracy theories. “I’ve been disappointed to see [social media platforms]t tolerate lies in Spanish that would never be tolerated in English,” said Castro, who joined the coalition on a Thursday press call.
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