A recent poll reinforced an ongoing theme heading into the 2022 midterms: U.S. Latino voters, who make up the country’s largest ethnic voting bloc, feel that both the Democratic and Republican parties “take them for granted.”
The poll, from Axios and Ipsos in partnership with Telemundo, also raised an urgent question: What will both parties actually do to earn the Latino vote?
The answer to that is deeply complicated by the battle against online disinformation targeted at voters, particularly Spanish-speaking ones. With Pew Research Center numbers showing that U.S. Latinos use YouTube Instagram and WhatsApp more than any other racial or ethnic demographic group, it’s no surprise that influencing these voters online is part of a political strategy.
Companies like Meta (formerly known as Facebook) failed to address the threat of disinformation in previous election cycles. If the 2021 elections in Virginia and New Jersey are any indication, the disinformation machine is showing no sign of slowing down, with false claims that ranged from President Joe Biden ordering the arrest of parents in Virginia to Spanish-language videos saying the results in New Jersey were rigged.
“Misinformation poses a threat to Hispanics, who are particularly vulnerable due to a greater reliance on social media and messaging platforms,” a September Nielsen study said.
Furthermore, per the Nielsen study, “much of the content, both user-generated and shared, is in Spanish, Spanglish, or colloquial...
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