Read more about the episode here.
Futuro investigates. Futuro. Futuro. Futuro. Investiga.
Archival tape: “Alexa, who will win the next American election?”
Alexa: “The 2024 American election will not take place. There will be no winner….”
Maria Hinojosa: In August of 2023, a video was shared online, and in that video, a white man wearing an army green trucker hat asks Alexa, Amazon’s AI voice assistant about the 2024 election.
Maria Hinojosa: Alexa seemingly responds that the election is not happening. It’s a lie of course. Still soon after infamous conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones decided to share the video with the millions of people who visit his far-right platform, Infowars, every month.
Jones: “So the buzz is out there that there won’t be a 2024 election. Now, I’m, I’m not saying that’s gonna happen. I’m saying we’re not in normal situation anymore. Let’s play the clip I just talked about with Alexa.”
Maria Hinojosa: And just like that the video takes off. It soon appears on YouTube.
Archival tape: “Alexa, who will win the next American … Facebook,Instagram, WhatsApp.
Maria Hinojosa: Some posts still up, have millions of views. As it snowballed…
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “This video was also shared on one of those weird Facebook pages with subtitles of Spanish, of course.”
Maria Hinojosa: That’s Evelyn Perez-Verdía, the founder of We Are Más, a consulting firm where she’s been focusing on countering disinformation, like the “no 2024 election lie.”
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn first came across the Alexa video in late 2023, when We Are Más partnered with Brown University in order to track election-related concerns among Latinos.
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “And what we did is we asked them two questions for six weeks. What are you hearing in your communities? And are there any rumors you’re hearing?”
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn says they received over 500 responses, but…
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “Only 20 percent were rumors. But within that 20%, there were two people, a Nicaraguan-American, and a Venezuelan-American, that did not know each other. And at the same time, both of them were mentioning about Alexa saying that there was not going to be an election in 2024.”
Maria Hinojosa: Because that Alexa Alex Jones video had moved on and it was now targeting Spanish speakers. (MUSIC THEME)
Maria Hinojosa: From Futuro Media and PRX, it’s Latino USA. I’m Maria Hinojosa. Today, The Misinformation Web, a new Futuro investigation. This story is part of our election coverage “The Latino Factor, How We Vote.” With just days left before the presidential election. We meet face-to-face with social media content creators, driving mis and disinformation in Spanish. And we attempt to answer some elusive, but key questions.
How much money are they making off of this? And is anybody funding them?
THEME MUSIC FADES DOWN
Juan Torres: “Hey, ¿qué tal amigos, cómo están ustedes? Gracias por estar aquí presente en el canal. El día de hoy quiero…”
Maria Hinojosa: This is Juan Torres, an influencer who is Venezuelan. For months, our team at Futuro Investigates researched digital creators who share political and election content on social media in Spanish.
In particular, we focused on two prolific YouTubers who have been very engaged with U.S. politics in the lead-up to the election. And Juan Torres was one of them. John Acquaviva, who also happens to be Venezuelan, was the other one.
John Acquaviva: “Todos los que vimos el debate sabemos que Kamala Harris se la pasó, ya sea interrumpiendo…”
Maria Hinojosa: These creators have a combined following of over half a million subscribers and counting. Both are very passionate about what’s happening in the United States, but neither one of them has any direct ties to this country. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Yes, you heard that right. And yet, despite living outside of the United States and not being U.S. citizens and can’t even vote in this country, their influence and reach is local. In our months-long research of misinformation in Spanish, we also came upon conspiracies about the FBI raid at Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago estate, lies about Kamala Harris being a Marxist, theories about President Joe Biden’s decision to not run for re-election. All of these narratives originated in English. Only to be repurposed soon after in Spanish. It’s not new that Latinos in the U.S. are prime targets of misinformation, particularly in Spanish. After all, over 40 percent of us consume news in Spanish. What’s different this election cycle is a growth of both content creators attracted by the ever expanding Latino market and the online platforms themselves. 17 percent of U.S. adults now get news from TikTok compared to just 3 percent in 2020.
Maria Hinojosa: And X, formerly Twitter, has now expanded because it pays verified users. And so, more users started trying to go viral. And going viral is good for business, because it means more followers, more clicks, and ultimately, more money. It’s hard to know how many creators are putting out fake content in this election cycle.
Maria Hinojosa: Experts have told us there simply aren’t enough resources dedicated to tracking them all, especially in Spanish. So, posts en español just live on, and on, and on, fueling a wave of disinformation that drowns out the facts, and ultimately, drowns out the truth. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Sadly, it’s Latinos who are often the ones spreading this content to our own communities, and sometimes from afar, because, dear listener, as we dug into how this underworld of misinformation operates and who the players are, we actually had to leave the United States in order to get the answers.
Juan Torres: “Mi nombre es Juan José Torres Estrada, tengo 24 años, vivo en Islandia, hace un año vivía en Venezuela, soy creador de contenido de redes sociales en la política estadounidense.”
Maria Hinojosa: Juan Jose Torres Estrada. who goes by Juan Torres on his social media, is a 24-year-old Venezuelan man who told us he lives in Iceland. Yes, you heard that right, Iceland. (MUSIC) Yet, he runs two YouTube channels which focus almost entirely on U.S. politics and on the U.S. election. His main channel, Venezuela News, has over 170,000 subscribers and his political videos started in May of 2023, and that’s what really caught our attention, why a channel called Venezuela News is actually all about U.S. politics. On this video posted in early August, Juan tries to paint a dark picture of what a Kamala Harris presidency would look like.
Juan Torres: “Te voy a compartir a continuación una lista de lo que quiere hacer Kamala Harris si gana la presidencia de los Estados Unidos y no son muy buenas: Abolir el ICE.”
Maria Hinojosa: He says she will abolish ICE.
Juan Torres: “Definanciar a la policía”
Maria Hinojosa: That she would defund the police.
Juan Torres: “Recompra obligatoria de armas y la confiscación…”
Maria Hinojosa: And confiscate your arms. The list of lies goes on. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: As we tracked Juan’s videos, the question persisted. Why a young Venezuelan who has never lived in the United States was so interested in our election, so much so to produce and post, according to his account, Yes, five videos about it, daily.
Juan Torres: “Con el tema de la política siempre me ha gustado desde muy pequeño…”
Maria Hinojosa: So, we reached out to Juan and asked for an interview. He agreed pretty quickly. But when we told him that we were willing to fly out to Iceland to meet him in person, he refused, agreeing only to a virtual interview.
Maria Hinojosa: And so in early September, Juan joined us from the same place that we see in most of his videos. The background on his screen is blurred, but you can see a kitchen behind him.
Juan Torres: “This is like an in the kitchen and the studio at the same time.”
Maria Hinojosa: Purple LED lights illuminate the space, and he tells me, it’s his favorite color.
Maria Hinojosa: He has a round face. He has dark hair that’s short and neatly trimmed along with a goatee. Today he’s wearing a black t-shirt, which is the casual look that he sports in most of his videos. When we asked Juan about how he prepares his videos and who are his sources, he gives us just one answer.
Juan Torres: “Mis fuentes son X, Twitter.”
Maria Hinojosa: He says: “My sources are X,” a.k.a. Twitter.
Juan Torres: “Todo es investigado por mí a través de la plataforma X. Básicamente tengo fuentes confiables del Partido Republicano y creadores de contenido en habla inglesa.
Maria Hinojosa: Juan said everything is researched by him, using quote trusted sources from the Republican Party and other accounts in English to gather information, but a review of his video shows that he often just takes content from an X post in English and simply translates it on screen for his audience.
Maria Hinojosa: So I asked him the question that’s been on my mind since I first watched his videos. Why is a 24 year old Venezuelan in Iceland so invested in the U.S.?
Juan Torres: “Lo que yo quiero hacer que de acuerdo a los principios fundamentales que se tiene que defender en Estados Unidos, mantenerlos en Venezuela o trasladarlos a Venezuela. Es el único camino. Ese es mi propósito.”
Maria Hinojosa: Juan says he wants to see core principles of the GOP transferred to Venezuela.
Juan Torres: “No estoy de acuerdo a que un niño se le tenga que enseñar lo que tenga que ver con sus relaciones cuando es un niño.”
Maria Hinojosa: Like, not teaching children about gender in schools.
Juan Torres: “Es el derecho de el porte de arma.”
Maria Hinojosa: And about the right to bear arms.
Maria Hinojosa: “So your entire motive for what you are doing is to impact the politics of Venezuela?”
Juan Torres: “Crear un nuevo movimiento.”
Maria Hinojosa: ” To create a new movement in Venezuela?”
Juan Torres: Un nuevo movimiento que realmente sea como el del Partido Republicano.
Maria Hinojosa: “And that that movement is based on the Republican Party of the United States.”
Juan Torres: “Sí” (MUSIC FADE OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: We first came across Juan through Fachequeado, which is a nonprofit initiative that counters mis and disinformation aimed at Spanish speakers in the U.S. In an article about the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s estate in Mar a Lago in August of 2022. They used one of Juan’s videos as a perfect example of misinformation.
Juan Torres: “Bienvenido nuevamente al canal de Venezuela News y Verdades sin Fronteras. Les tengo una información de último minuto que ha revelado una periodista independiente sobre la redada del FBI a la residencia de Mar a Lago.”
Maria Hinojosa: Earlier this year, Donald Trump twisted the standard language in an FBI document about the raid to falsely claim that the Biden administration was trying to kill him.
Maria Hinojosa: This claim spread like wildfire. Juan disseminated it too.
Juan Torres: “Básicamente, en conclusión, el Departamento de Justicia quería incitar al Servicio Secreto Donald Trump quería buscar la manera de incitarlo a la violencia. y así el FBI responder y decir ante los medios de comunicación que Donald Trump, fue el que tiró la piedra primero
Maria Hinojosa: Juan cites Julie Kelly as his source, calling her a journalist. Kelly describes herself on X as a conspiracy theorist and insurrection denier. Juan’s loose definition of journalist extends to himself on X. He identifies as a quote, independent journalist, sharing true story and free speech. But then he confirmed to us that he’s never studied journalism.
Maria Hinojosa: (MUSIC) “But on Twitter, you did call yourself a journalist.”
Juan Torres: “Correcto, creador de contenido.”
Maria Hinojosa: Yes, he says he’s a content creator.
Maria Hinojosa: “Well, content creator and journalist, do you see them as the same thing?”
Juan Torres: “No es lo mismo, exactamente.”
Maria Hinojosa: No, no, no, not the same. He tells me.
Maria Hinojosa: “But you did call yourself a journalist on X”
Juan Torres: “Sí”
Maria Hinojosa: “But you just said you didn’t identify yourself as a journalist.”
Maria Hinojosa: Juan says he doesn’t have the title, but personally it’s how he identifies. He brings up his abilities that according to him, validate his work.
Juan Torres: ” Nunca he estudiado el periodismo, pero si tengo mucho potencial en temas de conversación de política; política en general, tanto de Estados Unidos, Venezuela alrededor del mundo.”
Maria Hinojosa: He says he has, quote, a lot of potential when it comes to discussing politics about the United States, Venezuela, or the world. When immigration comes up in our conversation, Juan gets excited and then tries to debate the border with me.
Juan Torres: “¿Quién es el jefe del Border Patrol?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Y yo te estoy diciendo que no importa el nombre del jefe del Border Patrol.”
Juan Torres: “¿Por qué?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Because the system of what’s the problem with the border actually is decades in the making.”
Juan Torres: “Ok”
Maria Hinojosa: “By both Republicans and Democrats,”
Juan Torres: “Ok, perfecto.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Historically. But I’m not gonna do this, Juan. Hold on a second, hold on.”
Juan Torres: “Ok, pero escúchame algo”
Maria Hinojosa: ” I love the fact that you’re smiling. But I’m not, no, no, no. Here’s the thing, Juan. I’m not gonna get into a debate with you.”
Juan Torres: “Okay.”
Maria Hinojosa: “About what’s happening at the border when you’re in Iceland.” (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Our team had prepped for these interviews, but I hadn’t prepped for being confronted by what felt like a real live troll.
Maria Hinojosa: (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: When I asked Juan his thoughts on the two U.S. presidential candidates, he said he doesn’t support Kamala Harris or her policies, but that Trump goes beyond politics. He has a long history of real estate investments, and Trump knows how to deal with tough people, he says. So I asked him what he thinks about Trump being a convicted felon.
Juan Torres: “O sea, esos cargos que se le imputa a Donald Trump es mentira.”
Maria Hinojosa: He says, those charges, they are all lies. When I tell him that it’s a fact that Donald Trump has been convicted of multiple felonies, Juan says it’s all a witch hunt.
Maria Hinojosa: Ultimately, Donald Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers.”
Juan Torres: “Pero eso es una cacería de brujas que le están haciendo a Donald Trump no es cierto, no está aprobado. Qué es lo que se está haciendo en Nueva York, una persecusión…”
Maria Hinojosa: Juan tells us he lives in Keflavík, Iceland. We tried to confirm this location ourselves, but Juan’s digital footprint is scarce and pretty puzzling. The more we looked into it, the more confusing it was. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: For instance, we found some old Facebook posts that Juan had made looking for apartments in Iceland. But across his social media accounts, he tells a different story. On YouTube, his location for his two channels are set to Mexico. On X, he says he’s in the U.S. In his videos he does talk about moving to Iceland.
Maria Hinojosa: And then we found a clue in an old Facebook post on his page for Verdades Sin Fronteras. Which is Juan’s second YouTube channel.
Nour Saudi: “When you change something on Facebook, like you change your relationship status or your location, it’ll send it also as a post. And so there’s a post that just says, Verdades sin Frontera updated their address. Um, and so when you click that, it takes you to this map on Bing and it has this pin. Then we’re able to determine, okay, it’s pointing at this building or this structure here.”
Maria Hinojosa: When our producer, Nour Saudi, narrowed down the pin on the map, it indicated an address somewhere in Doral, Florida, not Venezuela, not Iceland, not Mexico.
Maria Hinojosa: But, as we zeroed in, Nour saw that this wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even an apartment building. It was a warehouse. So, we decided maybe we should go there to find out if we could see signs of Juan Torres there. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: “7902. Here it is. 7950. Okay. Hold on. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Let’s just see what it says. What?”
(MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Coming up on Latino USA, our quest to find out more about the content creators, making a living pushing out misleading content and lies, ends up taking us to some unlikely places. That’s after the break. Stay with us. No te vayas. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Hey! Welcome back. We just heard from Juan Torres, a YouTuber from Venezuela, who lives in Iceland, or so he claims. Before the break, we found a Facebook post from 2021 where he listed an address in Miami as the location of his page. Now, there was no way to verify what this location was or where it was, and how Juan, who has never lived in the United States, was connected to this place, unless we went there ourselves. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: “Um, so we are in Doral and what we are looking for is the address that Juan Torres has put as his address in the United States. Definitely no one lives here. This is a warehouse.”
Nour Saudi: “Conlogic Express.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Conlogic Express. Casillero Internacional.”
Maria Hinojosa: In the place where Juan had once listed as the address for his YouTube channel, we found a shipping service.
Maria Hinojosa: And this particular address was part of a maze of one-story warehouses behind locked doors. And so it felt like we ended up literally in the middle of nowhere.
Maria Hinojosa: “So we’re gonna try and find a human. Here we go.” (Sound of car door closing)
Maria Hinojosa: On the side walls and in the back. were shelves where cardboard boxes and other wrapped packages were sitting, some as big as a refrigerator, and all of these packages were getting ready to ship. On the right, when you first walk in, there was a small glass window revealing an office on the other side. A woman was sitting at the desk behind the window.
Maria Hinojosa: As we explained what we were doing there, an older man quickly walked out from the small office.
Maria Hinojosa: “Hola.”
Diego: “Hola.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Do you speak English?”
Diego: “Yeah.”
Maria Hinojosa: “We’re looking for a business that said it was located in the same address. Do you know…”
Diego: “This address?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Yeah, 7950.”
Diego: “On what street?”
Nour Saudi: “This exact street.”
Diego: “66?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Yeah. Yeah.”
Diego: “We have been here for two years, so…”
Maria Hinojosa: This is Diego. He’s 59 years old with a medium build and short gray hair. And like Juan, he is also from Venezuela. Diego and his wife run Conlogic Express, which functions basically like a shipping middleman. So someone in Venezuela could buy something from Amazon here in the U.S. Amazon ships it to Diego’s warehouse, and then they prepare the packages and give it to a freight forward to ship.
Maria Hinojosa: “Do you know who was here before?”
Diego: “It was the, it was a transportation company.”
Maria Hinojosa: “It was a transport…”
Maria Hinojosa: “Hawk?”
Diego: “Hawks Xpress.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Has anybody ever come looking for Verdades Sin Fronteras? Or someone by the name of Juan Torres. What would you think if I told you that there is a YouTube influencer who creates content on YouTube aimed at Spanish speakers talking about, uh, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and that his address said he was based here. What would I, what would you think”
Maria Hinojosa: We show Diego Juan’s YouTube page.
Diego: “This one?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Yeah.”
Diego: “Oh, it’s a young guy.”
Nour Saudi: “Yeah, very young.”
Maria Hinojosa: “24.”
Diego: “Let me see if it is registered with us.”
Maria Hinojosa: Diego decides to join us in our investigation as to the address that Juan has used.
Maria Hinojosa: Now Diego pulls out a black swivel chair and sits down and starts searching his database for Juan. (MUSIC)
Diego: “No, 2021.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Yeah.”
Diego: (MUSICI) “Is this one?”
Nour Saudi: “Yeah.”
Diego: “Let me see what it says.”
Nour Saudi: “That’s his emai.l”
Diego: “So, he registered with us some, some time, and then 2021, and he sent some package to Venezuela maybe.”
Maria Hinojosa: We were able to confirm it was the same Juan Torres because the email on the receipt was the same one we found in our research for Juan.
Diego: “That’s why he’s using our address.”
Maria Hinojosa: It was one way to make sense of it because if one thing was for certain, Juan had never had that address as his own.
Diego: “It’s not telling the truth. This is not his address. I mean, we are here for two years, maybe. And the people before us, it was another company. So, when is this guy was here? When?”
Maria Hinojosa: At this point, Diego’s wife, Marianela, got very concerned about the conversation we were having and she jumped in.
Marianela: ¿Es cliente de nosotros?”
Diego: “Sí.”
Maria Hinojosa: Marianela is also Venezuelan. She has a medium tan complexion and straight brown hair that reaches just past her shoulders. When she learns about what was happening, she gets visibly upset.
Marianela: “Es diferente porque si él comete un delito, vienen para acá. Él no puede usar nuestra dirección sin nuestro consentimiento. Entonces yo lo voy a contactar Facebook y le voy a decir: ‘¿tú usaste nuestra dirección? Si no la quitas, te denunciamos.'”
Maria Hinojosa: What if Juan gets into trouble and they connect him back to them? She tells us she’s going to contact him on Facebook and tell him to remove this address. If he refuses, she says she’s willing to report him to the police. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Diego, on the other hand, didn’t seem as worried. As far as he’s concerned, this was all just a way to make money from Youtube.
Diego: “He’s trying to cash this. That’s it. What he’s doing, as I can see here, is making money. (LAUGHS) That’s all he’s doing.
Maria Hinojosa: During our interview, we did ask Juan straight out about the address that he had listed.
Maria Hinojosa: When we spoke to him, he told us, matter of factly, that he needed an address in the U.S. in order to get paid for his content.
Juan Torres: “Hay políticas en las redes sociales que básicamente en Islandia, por ejemplo Facebook no se monetiza en Islandia. Y si tú hablas de Estados Unidos, obviamente tienes que poner una ubicación de Estados Unidos para que se te pueda monetizar. Es lo más lógico.”
Maria Hinojosa: Juan says he cannot monetize his Facebook content in Iceland, which is why he needs a U.S. location. Juan tells me this is basically the most logical approach. You have to have a U.S. address in order to get paid. (MUSIC) Now, misrepresenting your location on Meta, the owner of Facebook, violates the company’s community standards.
Maria Hinojosa: It’s unclear if Juan did this or if he used the address to make money. In any case, despite once declaring a U.S. address on Facebook, Juan, we remind you, has never, ever lived in the United States.
Maria Hinojosa: And as he told us, YouTube is his full-time job. It’s how he makes all of his money now.
Maria Hinojosa: “And what’s the largest amount of money that you have received? Let’s say.”
Juan Torres: “15,000 dólares.”
Maria Hinojosa: “15,000 dollars. For one video?”
Juan Torres: “No, por un mes.”
Maria Hinojosa: “For one month. Okay.”
Maria Hinojosa: Depending on which country someone is based in, YouTube, X, TikTok, and Facebook, all offer creators opportunities to make money off their content, usually through ad revenue that’s based on their post’s popularity.
Maria Hinojosa: We reached out to YouTube to ask them the size of their Spanish-language moderation team. They replied saying they have 20,000 moderators globally, quote, including many with Spanish language expertise, unquote. That’s 20,000 people monitoring the over 720 million hours of video uploaded to YouTube on a daily basis. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: A few days after we visited Diego and Marianela, the Doral address had been removed from Juan’s profile on Facebook. Diego told us that they didn’t get to reach out to Juan to ask him to delete it. So, we tried to ask Juan why he was no longer listing the location, and why he had used it in the first place.
Maria Hinojosa: But after speaking to us for two hours on video, Juan declined a second interview with our follow-ups. We kept on trying. We even tried to get answers in writing, but again, Juan declined to offer any explanation. (MUSIC) Still, Juan remained a bit of a mystery for me. Maybe it’s as simple as Diego from the warehouse thought.
Maria Hinojosa: You know, U.S. politics is just a money grab. Maybe that’s why new creators like Juan are popping up on the scene. But what is their impact on Latinos and Latinas just before this presidential election? So after hanging out in remote warehouses in the middle of nowhere, our journey to discover more about myths and disinformation continued.
Maria Hinojosa: So we got in our car and decided to move towards the Latino and Latina neighborhoods of South Florida. One place that has been rampant with misinformation during the past elections. That’s due to the area’s high concentration of Cubans and now more and more Venezuelans because misinformation campaigns aimed at them have exploited their fears of socialism and Marxism in order to attack Biden before and now to attack Harris.
(car sound)
Maria Hinojosa: In Doral, which actually is now referred to as Doralzuela. We asked folks on the streets where they were getting their news. And while a few answered with some traditional news sources.
Andrés Soto: “Fox News.”
Maria Hinojosa: “And is that your most trusted source?”
Andrés Soto: “That’s my most trusted source.”
Jessica: “CNN? NPR.”
Maria Hinojosa: Others pointed to social media.
Maria Hinojosa: “Where do you get your information?”
Nicolás: “Mmm. En Tiktok aparecen muchitas cosas, así como me gustan cosas cortitas.
Maria Hinojosa: “Español.”
Nicolás: “Español.”
Mujer: “Utilizo Tiktok e Instagram, y si veo alguna noticia que me interesa…”
Maria Hinojosa: In Miami, we also met up with Ana Maria Carrano, Facquecheado’s managing editor. Remember, this is one of the main organizations in the U.S. that’s tracking misinformation in Spanish.
Maria Hinojosa: Hi!
Maria Hinojosa: Hola! Hola! Hola!
Ana María Carrano: Hola!
Maria Hinojosa: She, and her very excited dog, welcomed us into her home.
Ana María Carrano: “We’ve seen that as close as we get to elections, uh, there are more fake content in social media targeting Hispanic people.
Maria Hinojosa: We wanted to speak to her in order to understand if Juan’s videos are having a real impact on U.S. soil.
Ana María Carrano: “Latinos tend to get informed basically on social media, and they rely a lot on their families and people they know. So, they don’t trust official sources, more tend to rely on other sources that not necessarily are well informed.”
Maria Hinojosa: And not everyone who shares misinformation has ill intentions.
Ana María Carrano: “It could be your grandma, or your friend that you know very well and they think that this is true because they are looking at the, the logo of a news outlet and they think that this is true.”
(MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: So you have people with verified accounts and huge audiences like Elon Musk with 200 million followers on X or even Juan Torres, who has more than about 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. When they share claims about Kamala Harris being a Marxist, those lies can spread more quickly because their peddlers seem to be reputable.
Archival tape: “Cinco razones para votar por Carmela Harris: número uno, si usted quiere abortar hasta los nueve meses, vote Carmela Harris. Número dos, si usted tiene mucho dinero y no le importa el precio de la comida, la gasolina…”
Maria Hinojosa: Videos, like the one we just heard, that not only mispronounces Harris’s name, but also repeats a common lie, for example, that prices will immediately shoot up if she becomes president. It’s the old law of propaganda. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: I sat down with Ana María to look at some examples of myths and disinformation that Factchequeado has flagged. One of them was an AI-generated image of Kamala Harris posted on X by the platform’s owner, Elon Musk.
Maria Hinojosa: “So you have a situation where Elon Musk has actually tweeted out a picture of Kamala Harris wearing a red outfit and a cap with the sickle and hammer, um, looking like a communist and it says ‘Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit?’ Wow.”
Ana María Carrano: “Wow.”
Maria Hinojosa: This connection between Kamala Harris and Marxism or communism has been pushed by the far right repeatedly over the last several years, but specifically over the last year. For example, the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas tracks hundreds of Spanish-language public WhatsApp groups, and they found that since January of this year, at least 24,000 Latinos were likely exposed to content connecting Vice President Harris to communism. And around a third of this exposure to these lies happened in the week following the presidential debate in September, when Trump repeated those claims.
Ana María Carrano: “And this narrative is basically trying to tackle emotions into the voters. ‘Can you believe Elon Musk posted this image of Kamala?’ So often, that is so easy to spread out. Instead of facts, facts are not sexy to talk about.”
(MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Being a political influencer has been a lucrative job for Juan, but he’s not the only online creator making a living by talking about U.S. politics from outside of the United States. So, part of our investigation is trying to understand how some creators are making so much money off of Spanish-language content. And this ended up taking us on a plane across the pond, yes, across the Atlantic, because our next stop…
Flight attendant: “Good morning, everyone. Welcome to London, where the local time is approximately 10:30.”
Maria Hinojosa: Is England. And our goal is to meet face-to-face with someone named John Acquaviva.
John Acquaviva: “Qué fue, mi gente? Es John Acquaviva. En esta oportunidad vamos a estar hablando de Kamala Harris…”
Maria Hinojosa: John Acquaviva is another Venezuelan YouTuber. His channel has over 340,000 subscribers, and he’s published more than a thousand videos, some date back years, most often covering Venezuelan issues. But in the lead up to the 2020 election, his content shifted to focus primarily on U.S. politics.
John Acquaviva: “No importa que Kamala Harris no esté explicando de dónde va a sacar la plata para pagar todos los regalitos que ha prometido. Cuando ella dice plataformas…”
Maria Hinojosa: John is 31 year -old. Back in Venezuela and Colombia, he was a professional athlete in something called freestyle football. He moved to England in 2014, where his mom’s family lived. When we reached out to request an interview, he agreed to meet us in person. He did not want to share his home address or hometown. Instead, he agreed to meet us in downtown London. At Leicester Square, which is essentially like Times Square, and he was staying at the swanky Londoner Hotel. That’s where my producer Nour and I headed to meet him.
(AMBI sound)
Maria Hinojosa: John walks over to us where we are waiting in the lobby. He’s tall, frankly, towering over me. And he has these big, broad shoulders.
Maria Hinojosa: “Hola, ¿cómo estás?”
John Acquaviva: “Bien, ¿y tú?
Maria Hinojosa: He’s dressed pretty sleekly with a black jacket over a white shirt and jeans. He’s got a light complexion, dark hair, and dark brown eyes. John tells me he keeps his home address private ever since a group called Ven En In, Venezuelans in England, reported him to the police because of pro-Trump posts he had made back in 2016.
Maria Hinojosa: John then says the police came to his home, busted his front window, and confiscated air rifles that he had been displaying in his living room, for all to see. Ten minutes into our conversation, John, just like Juan Torres, tries to provoke a debate with me.
Maria Hinojosa: “So, let me ask you, though, why, why would you put.”
John Acquaviva: “Because I like it. What’s the problem? Obviously you do because you are against guns, but that’s just a different subject.”
Maria Hinojosa: “What did you say?”
John Acquaviva: “Obviously you do see a problem with it, because you’re against guns, but that’s your opinion, I cannot lie.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Wait a second, what are you talking about?”
John Acquaviva: “I’ve seen your opinions about gun control.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Opinions?”
John Acquaviva: “Yeah.”
Maria Hinojosa: “You’d have to specifically show me something that shows an opinion.”
John Acquaviva: “You’ve spoken endlessly about mass shootings.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Endlessly.”
John Acquaviva: “Yeah.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Okay.”
John Acquaviva: “I actually have some quotes. Do you want to read them?”
Maria Hinojosa: “No.” (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: So once again, I had to push back against getting baited to get into a debate with John. “And so the answer to the question of why you focus on U.S. politics is?”
John Acquaviva: “Because at the moment, U.S. politics influences Venezuela more than Venezuelan politics. So if you’re going to be interested in creating the most amount of growth possible, you’re going to support, I think, if you’re living in the West, or if you’re living in any Latin American country, you’re going to support who you think is the best option to lead United States.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Because the United States is going to impact.”
John Acquaviva: “Yes, exactly.”
Maria Hinojosa: (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: YouTube and Instagram and a smaller Telegram channel are the primary platforms John spends most of his time on now.
John Acquaviva: “I decided this is what I am most passionate about. This is what I actually think is what I’m meant to do. The moment for the past two years I’ve been a content creator, political analyst, opinador, whatever you want to call me. But yeah, I make my living from my content the same way you do.”
Maria Hinojosa: A review of John’s YouTube channel shows it’s clear he favors Trump.
John Acquaviva: “I’m supporting Trump, obviously. I think that when you compare it to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,”
Maria Hinojosa: “When you said obviously”
John Acquaviva: “Well, I think he’s the best option out of what is available. As soon as you’re president, you have to do what you’ve promised. I’m not going to keep supporting you if you’re not doing what you promised to do.”
Maria Hinojosa: “You don’t vote in the United States?”
John Acquaviva: “No.”
Maria Hinojosa: “You’re not a US citizen?”
John Acquaviva: “No.”
Maria Hinojosa: “You have no plans to move to the United States?”
John Acquaviva: “Never thought about it.”
Maria Hinojosa: “I just find that fascinating because you know, you’re so engaged with U.S. politics, but literally you have nothing to do with the United States.”
John Acquaviva: “Yeah.”
Maria Hinojosa: I continued in my conversation and asked John specifically about his position on Kamala Harris.
John Acquaviva: “How can you trust someone who has said that the main cause or one of the main culprits of high grocery prices in America at the moment is that the supermarkets are charging too much? That is exactly what happened in Venezuela, Maria. Chávez said exactly the same thing.”
Maria Hinojosa: John doesn’t go as far as calling Harris a Marxist or a communist like the other content creators have, but he says on this policy point, essentially, they’re equal. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Coming up after the break, we look at what solutions are being put in place to combat misinformation, and we keep digging into the money mystery. Stay with us. No te vayas.
Maria Hinojosa: Welcome back, dear listener. In this episode, we’ve heard from two YouTubers who, despite having never lived in the United States, focus virtually all of their content on the upcoming U.S. presidential election, including, many times, misleading information, and all of it in Spanish. And the question at the front of our minds was always, who’s funding all of this?
Maria Hinojosa: And so I asked Juan Torres and John Acquaviva directly if someone was paying them to do this or if they got any help from any organization and they both quickly said no.
Maria Hinojosa: ” So, which sponsors do you have?”
John Acquaviva: “I don’t have any. No.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Zero.”
John Acquaviva: “Zero.”
Maria Hinojosa: “¿No tienes ningún apoyo institucional en Estados Unidos?”
Juan Torres: “No.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Nadie con el cual tú estás colaborando o trabajando?”
Juan Torres: “No.”
Maria Hinojosa: Every expert we spoke to talked about the difficulty in tracing the money factor. This is what Ana María, Factchequeado’s editor, who we heard from earlier, had to say about this.
Maria Hinojosa: “Where is all this money coming from? ¿Ni idea?”
Ana María Carrano: ” I have ideas, but I wouldn’t say that aloud because as a fact-checker, I have to, to tell what I know and what is truth.”
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn of We Are Más, who we heard from at the top of the show, also shared some thoughts.
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “What we’ve heard from some journalists in Latin America is a lot of the money comes from the Kremlin to Latin America through certain accounts. There’s connections with Venezuela and other places, and then it gets disseminated.”
Maria Hinojosa: Now, we have no evidence that either Juan Torres or John Acquaviva are funded by Russia or any other government, either directly or indirectly. But the truth is that Russia has repeatedly interfered with U.S. elections. In fact, in September, as we were flying to London, an FBI investigation found evidence that the state-run media outlet RT, formerly known as Russia Today, sent millions of dollars to Tenet Media, Tennessee based content creation company with the goal of spreading pro-Russia propaganda across YouTube, TikTok, and other major platforms in order to influence the American public and in order to sow division.
Maria Hinojosa: Here’s Evelyn again.
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “Content is created in Latin America and content is created in the United States that is being shared to scare family and friends with whatever they want the purpose to be.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Fear is a central part of this from your, uh, your analysis, the role of fear.”
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “The role of fear to weaken democratic institutions.” (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: And we heard about this fear firsthand from a Latina voter. At Evelyn’s home in Weston, in South Florida, she introduces us to Esperanza, who is Evelyn’s hairstylist.
Maria Hinojosa: (LAUGHS)
Maria Hinojosa: Now, Esperanza is not the hairstylist’s real name because she wants to remain anonymous in order to protect her business, but Esperanza was part of the pilot program with Brown University that Evelyn worked on, that we mentioned earlier in the episode. Esperanza had been hearing and seeing a lot of misinformation from her clients at the hair salon. One person put her in a telegram group called “Qausalidad,” the word in Spanish for cause or origin. The word is spelled with a C, but in this Telegram group, it was spelled with a Q as in QAnon, the far-right political conspiracy movement. (MUSIC) The lies and conspiracies Esperanza says she heard from her clients ranged from the persistent lie that President Joe Biden is allowing criminals to cross the border, all the way to Biden being behind the first attempted assassination of Trump.
Maria Hinojosa: “That information, where, where, where was it coming from?”
Esperanza: “Todo esa mayoría de cosas salen en TikTok.”
Maria Hinojosa: Even though Esperanza works at her hair salon and hears the talk of politics day in and day out, she still believes that she’s not entirely informed about politics in the U.S., but she told us she definitely will not be voting for Donald Trump.
Esperanza: “Le tengo pánico a Trump, pánico, con el tema de las armas. Le tengo muchísimo miedo con el tema del racismo.”
Maria Hinojosa: She says she’s afraid of Trump because of two particular issues, guns and racism. But she tells us that a majority of the women she’s spoken to at the salon are telling her they are going to vote for Donald Trump, influenced by those entrenched rumors they’ve heard about Democrats equaling socialism. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn says misinformation is a problem that needs to be urgently addressed by the government, by journalists, and by academics.
Evelyn Pérez-Verdía: “My frustration, to be honest with you, Maria, was I felt like the Cassandra of Greek mythology. Right? Because I kept on saying, look at this, look at how this is affecting our communities.And the response of many advisors and consultants to them was, you know what, you just can, you just need to laugh it off.”
Maria Hinojosa: And as we saw before, when Elon Musk shares a fake photo of Kamala Harris in a communist getup, it passes off as a meme. Some people might laugh, but on the ground, it has a real impact, from the neighborhoods of Miami…
Andrés: “I don’t buy into that she’s a communist or anything, but her social views are right up there with people who I would not support.”
Maria Hinojosa: “The Kamala Harris presidency, what concerns you about that?”
Ximena: “Socialism.”
Maria Hinojosa: “Socialism?”
Ximena: “Yes.
Maria Hinojosa: “Do you believe that Kamala Harris elected would lead to socialism?”
Ximena: “I think so. But, I tell you, I’m not completely informed.”
Maria Hinojosa: And all the way to New Jersey, which has one of the highest populations of Cuban Americans in the country.
Nour Saudi: “Are you going to vote in the election?”
Laura: “Yes.”
Nour Saudi: “You know who for?”
Laura: “Trump.”
Nour Saudi: “Okay, and why?”
Laura: “Well, my dad is from Cuba and like people that come from a communist country, they already know what’s going to happen and everything is divided. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Dilina: “It’s not a real thing that she can do for us, for the Latin people, because, you know, when they are elected, they change all the things. So I think this is afraid for us, the immigrant. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Back in Miami, in her home office, Evelyn played us a recording from a local radio station called La Poderosa.
Archival tape: “Tú viste, tú viste Kamala y el el el [inaudible] se tiraron una foto en un sitio donde como una, una sede de socialista…”
Maria Hinojosa: So on this Spanish language radio show, the hosts are criticizing Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walls, for allegedly taking a photograph at the offices of an organization, allegedly called Revolutionary Communists of America, where you see Kamala Harris and Tim Walz with a hammer and sickle insignia behind them, huge on the wall.
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn was immediately suspicious of this, so she picked up the phone, called the station, and asked a friend who worked there to send her the information. The friend sent her a video on WhatsApp of a TikTok.
Archival tape: “I have not asked this yet. I’m going to get myself in trouble. Okay, go on. That’s fine. (LAUGHS)
Maria Hinojosa: The TikTok and the account that posted it is now deleted. But on WhatsApp, Evelyn saw the note above the video that said, “Forwarded many times”. It’s a notice WhatsApp adds to content forwarded too many times in order to help prevent spamming and misinformation. (MUSIC FADES IN)
Maria Hinojosa: Evelyn called the station back and insisted that this wasn’t a real photo, it wasn’t a real video. The backdrop had been photoshopped behind Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. A short while later, the station went on the air and issued a correction.
Archival tape: “Su tendencia marxista eso sí es muy real, pero bueno, este video en específico no, y queríamos dejarlo claro.”
Maria Hinojosa: The radio anchor acknowledged that the video was in fact fake, but then followed up by saying this lie, that Kamala Harris’ Marxist tendencies were still very, very real.
Maria Hinojosa: Across social media, the line between misinformation and opinion gets murkier and murkier. That’s the same reasoning John Acquaviva gave us when we asked about accusations against him that he’s pushing mis and disinformation.
John Acquaviva: “Misinformation could be an opinion. Disinformation is where I take issue with, and then you’d have to prove that I’ve lied about something.”
Maria Hinojosa: “So, what about the fact that you said that Democratic Party leaders, quote-unquote, intentionally pushed Joe Biden’s June debate against Trump?”
John Acquaviva: “Joe Biden said it. It was obvious. Why else would they push for it to be so early, if not to give Kamala Harris a chance to create her own campaign? What, is that a coincidence Maria?”
Maria Hinojosa: “Hold on a second, hold on a second. I just want to say, when you’re saying it’s so obvious, it’s not that you have any written documentation or actually journalism.”
John Acquaviva: “Listen, in politics, when something is a huge coincidence, like a huge coincidence, I lean on the side of it not being a coincidence. Do I have the proof of that they did it? No, but it’s my opinion.” (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Ana María from Factchequeado has heard this before.
Ana María Carrano: “If they’re saying: ‘Well, in my opinion, I think that probably,’ so you can’t fact check an opinion because people have the, the right to have their opinions. So if someone gets famous by telling their opinion, how do you censor?” (MUSIC FADES IN)
Maria Hinojosa: And at the end of the day, research has shown that it’s not that Latinos are more inherently susceptible to misinformation, but that the real root of the problem is a lack of accurate resources and tools to combat mis and disinformation that directly targets them in Spanish.
Maria Hinojosa: And with the expansion of artificial intelligence, fake content spreads more easily and more widely, like the lie about the election being cancelled that we started our show with.
Ana María Carrano: “They want you to act based on fear on an emotion that you can’t control.” (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Dear listener, what we’ve learned in our investigation is that the problem of dis and misinformation in our community will continue to grow because it feeds on emotions, emotions that among Latinos and Latinas can overpower facts. And then there is the perpetually elusive question of the money behind all of these disinformation efforts.
Maria Hinojosa: You should know, dear listener, we’re going to continue to press on this. What is clear is that there simply aren’t enough resources in Spanish to counter these lies. Resources like learning the basics of media literacy. For example, how to triple source a piece of information, because that’s hard to come by in our community. Especially when the lies come from others who speak and look and sound just like us. (MAIN THEME)
Maria Hinojosa: The Misinformation Web is an original production of Futuro Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was produced by Nour Saudi and edited by Andrea López-Cruzado. Additional research and support by Arturo Ángel and our associate producer Roxana Aguirre. Fact-checking for this episode by Elizabeth Lowenthal Torres.
Maria Hinojosa: Scoring and sound design by Jacob Rosati. Our piece was mixed by Gabriela Baez. To find out more about the Misinformation Web and to read our articles, visit futuroInvestigates.org. Again, that’s futuroInvestigates.org. The Latino USA team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Victoria Estrada, Reynaldo Leaños Jr., Stephanie Lebow, Luis Luna, Glorimar Márquez, Marta Martínez, and Nancy Trujillo. Peniley Ramírez is our co-executive producer, along with myself, and I’m your host, Maria Hinojosa. Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime, look for us on social media. I’ll see you on the gram, and as usual: ¡No te vayas!
(MAIN THEME FADES OUT)
Stephanie Lebow: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, working toward a just and equitable New Jersey; the Tao Foundation, and Skyline Foundation.
