Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press.
The ultra-right in the U.S. seeks to create disinformation among the Latino and Afro-descendant electorate and thus prevent them from voting in the elections to be held on November 3.
This was pointed out by the researcher of Equis LabsJacobo Licona, who stressed that the far-right group that supports the current president and candidate for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, creates distractions and confusion in order to prevent this sector of the population to cast their vote.
"Bad actors are using social media to misinform, suppress the vote and dampen enthusiasm among key progressive voters, including the Latino community," he said.
And, he said, there are various cultural and demographic nuances within the Latino and other Afro-descendant communities, especially geographic and generational, that create conditions that easily lead to misinformation or disinformation.
In that sense, he noted that, in the case of people from the Latino community, the Spanish language allows gaps in information to be created, which can be exploited to create misleading narratives.
In the Latino community, he said, "voters tend to follow political news less. So they are more susceptible to these kinds of tactics.
The false narratives are often amplified in social networks - media used by the Latino community, especially to be informed of political issues, Licona said during the videoconference "Manipulating the vote: how to detect disinformation that threatens the U.S. elections," conducted by Ethnic Media Services.
Also, he said, there is external interference, as in the case of Russia, where groups have exploited issues such as immigration, in addition to promoting disinformation through messaging platforms such as WhatsApp.
"We know that (WhatsApp) is very popular among the Latino community and also among other Afro-descendant communities. It is fundamental for the dissemination of information and disinformation, which is a problem because, on these platforms, it is more difficult to know what is going on," he said.
He added that the far right has also sought to create racial tension and division among the Latino and Afro-descendant communities to generate confusion and fear.
"This division seeks to suppress Latino voters and voters of color, what they're trying to do is create a division and also a general distrust of the system, which can affect the way people vote."
The misinformation that has been seen during this election period has surpassed previous ones, because this time, he said, has caused many voters to distrust the postal service, since this means of voting is very safe.
"Trump is constantly pushing this theory about mail-in voting, and in doing so, many are amplifying the theories of voter fraud and manipulation - claiming that the left is trying to steal the election through mail-in voting."
This, he noted, undermines confidence in both the electoral process and the integrity of the election results.
An example of this, he pointed out, is a series of propaganda that says socialism is growing and will come to the United States, should Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate who is continually linked to this type of political and economic doctrine, win.
For his part, the director of the Algorithmic Transparency of the National Citizens ConferenceCameron Hickey noted that "viral misinformation is contagious and dangerous, just like a real virus. This content spreads because people share it with each other. And it creates serious problems that threaten our health and the future of our democracy.
He stressed that disinformation touches on very specific issues, such as conspiracies, extremist theories that cause fear and try to manipulate people, who even change their behavior because of them.
He added that this disinformation is usually out of context, lacks logic, brings up issues from the past, uses terms that divide and incite hatred, or is based on "pseudo-science".
In these elections, he pointed out that the key issues have been QAnon: A conspiracy theory founded and spread by the extreme right, through social networks since 2017, whose leader "Q", to date, is unknown, but which spreads first-hand information from the government.
QAnon is part of the history of US politics mainly because of theories that point to a very privileged sector in the US that seeks to influence, in a very profound way, the politics of the country, to such an extent that it has tried to establish a "dark state", where racism is mainly sown, fascist and anti-Semitic factions are superimposed and from where xenophobia is promoted; from QAnon Satanic cults are also born, whose purpose is to sacrifice minors for sexual purposes.
QAnon is not limited to the political elite, but also to the financial and banking elite; the food consumption industry is said to be linked to pharmaceuticals, the entertainment industry and the media, the latter being the channel and the path for disinformation.
Another issue is the civil warThis includes messages from both the right and the left that the country must prepare for armed conflict and threatens with alleged consequences if the elections do not go well.
Ideological hyperboleThe message is that a candidate or political party will establish or perpetuate an extremist ideology such as Nazism or Communism.
Voting access is another hot-button issue in this election, as misconceptions are being spread about when, where and how to vote. One example of that, he said, is the misinformation that "Republicans vote on Wednesdays and Democrats vote on Tuesdays.
The risk of ballot transportation is a recurring theme and concern; this narrative sends a message that questions and exposes the problems of voting by mail, for example, that ballots can be stolen, tampered with, retained, or burned, and thus lead to voter fraud.
Therefore, it was stressed that every citizen has a role to play to reduce the impact of this content that generates confusion and distrust during the electoral process, so it called to verify the information received and invite others to do the same, such as reporting such content to platforms like Junkipedia and, finally, share truthful and verifiable information.
