Free Press Action

Friend,

Notice any familiar faces in this picture?

Free Press Action Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzàlez with fellow civil-society experts and Sen. Ben Ray Luján

Free Press Action Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzàlez (right) with fellow civil-society experts and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (center)

I recently joined Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Alex Padilla for a Capitol Hill briefing to highlight the crisis of non-English disinformation — and to issue an urgent call for social-media platforms to beef up content moderation across all languages.

Earlier this summer, Free Press’ nationwide poll found that daily Spanish speakers in the United States are more likely to experience the negative impacts of online misinformation:¹

Daily Spanish speakers are more frequent users of social media for news compared to other U.S. adults, spending less time watching traditional TV.
They are far more likely to seek out culturally relevant news and information, but are more likely to say they don’t feel informed about local elections.
47% of daily Spanish speakers report that they encounter stories they believe are misinformation “very often” or “some of the time.”

Dominant Spanish-speakers are feeling the effects of social-media companies’ lack of investment in Spanish-language content moderation: This means that more hate, more lies and more harassment are getting through to them. This is nothing new: In fact, in prior election cycles, social-media platforms removed English-language threats of violence about voting stations and political events — but kept this exact same content up in Spanish.²

In this day and age, disinformation is becoming more personalized based on the mass quantities of data that tech companies and data brokers collect about us. We are being micro-targeted based on our perceived beliefs and vulnerabilities, and tech companies have failed to put effective safeguards in place to curb lies and hate — especially amid the proliferation of generative AI. These companies have done even less to protect speakers of non-English languages.

To make matters worse, over the past two decades, we have lost more than 50 percent of local reporters³ who cover statehouses, school boards, local races and ballot measures — and these losses hit ethnic media especially hard. Without journalists to provide context, hate and lies often go unchecked.

It’s time to ensure that non-English speakers finally have the protections from misinformation — and the access to trustworthy content — that they deserve. Here’s what is needed:

Social-media platforms must do a better job of moderating content across languages, particularly content that sows distrust in democratic institutions or our electoral process.
Journalists must educate the public about the prevalence of online manipulation, and underscore how the problem is more acute in non-English languages.
Congress must pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to curb the rampant collection and retention of our personal data.
State legislatures must invest public dollars into local, independent, nonprofit and ethnic media outlets that meet communities’ needs and help people sort fact from fiction.
All of us must slow down in moments of crisis and chaos to ensure we’re getting the facts right.⁴

There’s no one remedy for this crisis, but we’re determined to keep fighting for the most effective solutions. Are you with us?

Thank you,

Jessica and the rest of us at Free Press Action

P.S. We’re fighting online misinformation everywhere it crops up — but it takes a lot of resources to cover that much ground. Can we count on you to donate today?

1. "National Poll Finds Spanish Speakers Concerned About the Spread of Misinformation and Their Readiness to Prepare for and Participate in Elections," Free Press, July 25, 2024

2. "'Ya Basta.' A New Coalition Calls on Facebook to Tackle the Spanish Misinformation Crisis,” TIME, March 16, 2021

3. "How Big Is the Reporting Gap?" Free Press, June 17, 2020

4. "How to Avoid Spreading Misinformation," Free Press, July 22, 2024

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