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Information gap
A lack of quality Spanish-language media is the main driver of mis- and disinformation in Spanish-speaking communities in the U.S., Zommer said.
“It’s not necessary that bad actors have been so good or that Latino communities believe in mis- and disinformation more than other diasporas,” Zommer said. “It’s that there were no other options trying to focus on them.”
The Hispanic population in the U.S. topped 68 million in 2024, and there were 624 Latino news outlets in 2019, compared to roughly 8,000 of local news outlets serving 241 million native English speakers. That number is pretty poor, Zommer said, and their quality can also be subpar. Latinos “get news that is not good enough,” Zommer said.
Meanwhile, Univision and Telemundo, the two largest Spanish-language television networks in the U.S., have seen their viewership in decline.
Most Spanish-language media is primarily text-based, but polls show that their audience mainly consume news via videos, Zommer noted. Spanish-language media “must be present in the right channels and formats where Latino Americans consume news,” she said.
“Part of the reason the gap has been so big is that there was little investment in evidence-based media in Spanish,” she said. “Some of these media have small teams with not necessarily all the resources to cover timely stories their community needs.”
Trust in mainstream media is also low amongst Latinos, not because of language, but because English-language media rarely cater to topics Latinos care about. Meanwhile, Latinos are often depicted “as victims or criminals,” and English-speaking media often also lacks nuance when covering ICE raids, Zommer said.
“Trusted” platform
The factors have prompted Latinos to follow content creators on social media for their news. Content creators “focus on the conversations that Latino communities are having,” Zommer said.
She noted that Facebook, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp, are the main vehicles for news consumption among Latinos. WhatsApp stands out as a major platform for disinformation due to its widespread use, as 54% of Latino adults use WhatsApp compared to 20% of white Americans.
Primarily an encrypted messaging app, WhatsApp helps Latinos stay in touch with their families and friends in their countries of origin. Information spread on WhatsApp is often more trusted, as it is circulated by people close to them, Zommer explained. This can allow mis- and disinformation to circulate quickly amid their inner circle of friends and family.
Facebook and YouTube also are sources of disinformation, as these platforms lack effective moderation of Spanish-language content. According to a study from Avaaz, a human rights nonprofit, just 30% of comparable mis- and disinformation in Spanish ended up being flagged on social media, compared to 71% of English-language content.
This is a feature, not a bug: In order to maximize financial gains, tech companies have built platforms to distribute engaging content, not necessarily fact-based information, Zommer observed.
“If people see the same contents dozens of times without looking for them, sometimes they believe in disinformation,” she added.
Sensationalist content
Social media is a highway loaded with sensationalist mis- and disinformation that exploits human emotions, Zommer said. “As human beings, we’re motivated by emotions, not facts,” she said.
Zommer singled out one trick especially used to spread falsehoods among Latinos: AI-generated audio and video of media figures saying things that they never said, such as the Jorge Ramos deepfake.
Popular and trusted figures like Ramos or Carlos Espina, a high-profile Texas-based content creator, have been impersonated to carry statements like, “President Trump decided to give pardon to all immigrants” to make the claim sound credible, she said.
“Every week or two we found a kind of campaign using them to scam people,” she said, adding that Factchequeado has worked extensively to debunk them by publishing verification notes.
These disinformation campaigns thrive on fear, Zommer noted.
“Lots of people who arrived in the U.S. in the last decades fled from countries with authoritarian governments from the left,” she said. Purveyors of disinformation appeal to the fears that immigrants will lose freedoms they currently enjoy in the U.S., or that the U.S. government will suddenly become communist.
For example, the narrative portraying Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, as a communist “was much more impactful” with Latino voters than with white or Black voters during the 2024 election, Zommer said.
Health care is another fertile ground for mis- and disinformation, especially for immigrants coming from Argentina, Peru or Uruguay, where public health care is free of charge, Zommer noted. Some of the most widespread health care myths include that Latino Medicaid beneficiaries are mostly unemployed, or that benefits are being applied to undocumented immigrants.
Misconceptions that tap into religious and familial values resonate with Latinos too, especially around gender diversity in schools, she added.
“Uncertainty and anxiety”
Zommer observed from surveys that immigration enforcement is undoubtedly the biggest issue feeding into mis- and disinformation for Latinos, far ahead of the economy, inflation, health care or communism.
The current climate of tough immigration enforcement induces a “period of uncertainty and anxiety” for Latinos, she said, where they are more likely to believe or share mis- and disinformation — even as purveyors are trying to exploit the situation to create even more fear and engagement.
“Since Trump arrived and started to say, ‘I don’t want you here,’ all disinformation purveyors increase this narrative to keep the audience engaged,” she explained. “If there’s not a real ICE raid that is big enough, they just fabricate it.”
As mis- and disinformation thrives, Zommer observed that many Latinos feel anxiety, including U.S.-born Latino citizens, citing a Pew Research Center finding that one in three Latinos already considered leaving the country last year. In turn, Latinos are changing their routines — like stopping going to work or stopping going with their children to school — as a direct result of what they see online and in their communities.
“The worst is that many Latino people don’t feel any longer welcome,” Zommer said.
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