How Spanish-Language Misinformation Will Play A Role In The 2022 Midterms

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4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

Texas kicks off the 2022 midterm elections March 1. But Democrats and political strategists have been raising the alarm about a problem months before ballots were ready to be cast: Spanish-language misinformation.

Latinos were the second-largest voting bloc in the 2020 presidential election for the first time. And nearly 70 percent of those voters get political information from social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, according to the research group Equis Labs.

So how does Spanish-language misinformation fit into that voting pattern? And how will it affect the midterms?

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Jen. Just a quick heads up before we start the show.
0:03.8	The news is rapidly developing and things may have changed by the time you hear this episode.
0:09.0	For the latest news tune into your public radio station and follow updates at npr.org.
0:21.8	New concerns about Spanish language disinformation in Florida, a battleground state that could
0:26.8	decide the election from YouTube to WhatsApp to Facebook conspiracy theories linked to the
0:32.4	Democrats are intensifying online. Elections are a highly vulnerable time for disinformation.
0:38.5	Social media feeds are full of falsehoods and conspiracy theories and it's increasingly spreading
0:43.6	in Spanish, which could be a problem for Hispanic and Latino voters. In 2020, Latinos were the
0:49.2	second largest voting block in the presidential election for the first time. And nearly 70% of those
0:54.7	voters get political information from social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube.
0:59.8	That's according to the research group, Equis Labs, which studies in Pulse Latino voter trends.
1:04.9	So how big of a problem is Spanish language disinformation and how could misinformation
1:09.9	influence this year's midterms? We'll get into all that and more after the break. I'm Jen
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