Right-wing Spanish-language media figures are spreading misinformation around the 2022 midterm elections, as well as misinformation primarily focused on Trump’s “big lie” about fraud in the 2020 election across Telegram and radio.

Social media platforms like YouTube have also enabled content rife with violative Spanish election misinformation to flourish long after their initial uploads on the platform, and although this misleading information also exists on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, right-wing Spanish radio and Telegram are particularly bad actors. These platforms regularly spread resurfaced misinformation about mail-in ballots and non-citizen voting. And after the FBI searched Mar-A-Lago for classified documents, some Spanish-language actors were fearmongering about the potential of fraud during the 2024 presidential election.

Spanish-language radio programs have been particularly explicit in their spread of election misinformation. Actualidad radio host Agustin Acosta recently called the 2020 presidential election “the greatest act of political corruption in the history of the United States,” while other hosts, like Americano Media’s Freddy Silva, peddled widely debunked claims about Dominion voting machine errors. Misinformation specific to the 2022 midterms has spread in the Latino community via translations of content from right-wing figures or outlets, like The Gateway Pundit.

General election misinformation primarily focused on the “big lie” and the...

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