The 2024 presidential election has seen a rise in Spanish-language misinformation and in the content creators making a living by pushing out this false content. From conspiracies about the FBI raid at Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago estate in 2023 to lies about Kamala Harris being a Marxist, our research found a clear pattern: all of these narratives which originated in English were soon repurposed for Spanish-speaking audiences.
Our months-long investigation explores how the problem has grown amid the expanded monetization of social media platforms and the rise of technologies like AI, which allows for faster and broader dissemination of content. In this episode by Futuro Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA, we hear directly from social media influencers pushing out content in Spanish, and the experts working diligently to combat disinformation ahead of the election.
Read the episode transcript here.
Misinformation targeted at Latino communities in the United States isn’t a new phenomenon. In past elections, false narratives and lies flooded not just social media, but radio waves as well—particularly in Spanish. The target was prime, as research shows that over 40 percent of Latinos consume news in that language. But 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.
The devolution of Twitter into X after Elon Musk’s takeover in late 2022 has made the platform a hotbed for misinformation. The platform has also expanded their monetization initiatives to favor paying subscribers. Just until early October of this year, X had paid verified creators a percentage of the revenue from ads shown in their replies. They’ve since shifted to pay creators directly, based on engagement their content gets from other subscribers. This strategy makes it more likely that creators will try to generate more content that goes viral. And unfortunately—what tends to go viral often is fake news.
At the same time, tech companies still don’t moderate or take down Spanish-language content on the same level as English. In fact, since November 2022, Meta, YouTube and X have all rolled back policies designed to limit mis- and disinformation.
Our investigation uncovers some of the persistent narratives that infiltrate Latino communities by following the journey of these lies and the very real impact they have on the ground. We spent months researching digital creators who share political and election content on social media in Spanish. In particular, we focused on two YouTubers who have been very engaged with U.S. politics in the lead up to the election.
One of them was Juan José Torres Estrada, a 24-year-old Venezuelan man who lives in Iceland. He goes by Juan Torres on his social media and runs two YouTube channels, one of which is called “Venezuela News.” Yet, the channel focuses almost entirely on the U.S. election. We also met with John Acquaviva, another content creator who became more actively engaged with U.S. politics in the leadup to the 2020 election. He also happens to be Venezuelan, and also happens to reside outside of the U.S.
As we cross the Atlantic to uncover why creators who have no direct ties to the U.S. focus so much of their time talking about its politics—and make money from this work, we untangle more of this misinformation web. We look at how lies are formed here and then spread, not just across the country, but reaching Latino communities across the globe.
This story is part of our ongoing election coverage “The Latino Factor: How We Vote.”
Illustration by Mya Pagan.
This episode was produced by Nour Saudi and edited by Andrea López-Cruzado. Additional research and reporting by Arturo Angel and our associate producer Roxana Aguirre. Fact-checking by Elizabeth Loewenthal Torres. Scoring and sound design by Jacob Rosati. It was mixed by Gabriela Baez.
