When the days are counted for the United States presidential election, which also includes the election of the entire House of Representatives and a portion of the Senate, disinformation promoted on social media among the Hispanic community is putting authorities and media newsrooms on alert as they try to counter the flood of false content.
Some media outlets are taking initiatives to address the problem. Long-established Washington newspapers such as El Tiempo Latino believe that the volume of work has increased to meet the need to clarify malicious content and add that the number of questions from their audience has increased.
In these days of electoral campaign they are busy correcting false statements circulating on social networks about the immigrants and other issueswhile also explaining to readers basic aspects of the US elections, including where and how to vote.
“We are in an election year. People are looking for more information and asking more questions. When we publish a story, we always get questions about it,” he explained to the Voice of America Claudia Ginestra, a journalist for this newspaper in the US capital.
This media outlet also works in partnership with content verification organizations in the US to publish real versions of the news on social media, including Factchequeado, which prides itself on being the first fact-checking and media literacy institution in the US focused on combating disinformation in Spanish.
Ginestra said that they must also adapt quickly to generate content that reaches people more quickly, such as short explanatory videos that have a better reach on social networks.
Hispanics seek information on social networks
A recent investigation of the Pew Research Center It reflects that Hispanic immigrants in the US obtain information mainly through online platforms, including social networks and mobile devices, a percentage that continues to increase.
“Nearly nine in 10 Hispanic adults, 87%, say they often or sometimes get their news on digital devices. This includes getting their news from search engines, 74% say they do so at least sometimes, 60% from news websites or apps, 56% from social media and 31% from podcasts,” said the Pew Research Center.
The study also delved into how Hispanics prefer to obtain information. 65% responded that they prefer to obtain news through their digital devices.
The task of verification in times of AI
For Laura Zommer, co-founder of Factchequeado, this year’s US elections highlight the challenges posed by information. “Those of us who seek to serve and inform them also have challenges,” she said.
One of these challenges, according to this expert, is artificial intelligence, where content is created in several versions, multiplying the same misinformation.
“For example, in TikTok videos, we see one video posted with a disinformation narrative and then we see two other videos with the same narrative, but with a different presenter saying the exact same thing,” Zommer said.
Added to this is the proliferation of false or misleading content spread on social media, which poses another challenge for those working to verify content.
The specialist says that these days there are false claims circulating that migrants are participating in the US electoral process. “One narrative that appears a lot has to do with a conspiracy theory that claims that migrants are participating in the US electoral process. [indocumentados] are voting,” he reiterated.
The FactChequeado team and El Tiempo Latino have agreed on a line of joint work to refute the fake news circulating on social media, and they do so by publishing videos and explanatory texts and reports where a fake news item is verified or denied.
Journalist Marcos Porras from El Tiempo Latino says that politics is one of the topics where there is the greatest lack of information among Hispanic immigrants. “It is an issue where we see that Latinos or Hispanics are misinformed (…) But we do see that our public likes to read and learn,” the journalist said.
Journalists see the need to act quickly to discredit fake news that spreads rapidly on digital platforms, and this requires coordinated efforts between organizations and media outlets that are pursuing the same goal.
The Voice of America also includes a special section in its publications: VOA Verifies where he presents correct versions of inaccurate or false information circulating on social media on different topics, including migration and the US elections on November 5.
[Con colaboración de Cristina Caicedo Smit, reportera de la VOA en Washington]
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