Before the 2020 U.S. election, the Latino community was inundated with misinformation and conspiracy theories on political and health issues — including inaccurate claims that coronavirus vaccines don’t work, Democrats were illegally harvesting ballots, a Biden administration would put the United States under the control of “Jews and Blacks,” that Joe Biden was a socialist and not a “real Catholic.” According to Maria Teresa Kumar, the founder of Voto Latino, these claims were “rampant and consequential” in the 2020 election. Much of this misinformation spread uncontested or was even outright weaponized by those opposed to Joe Biden.
The 2022 elections may be no different. The left-leaning advocacy group Avaaz reports that more than 70 percent of Spanish-language political misinformation has stayed online, compared with 29 percent of English-language misinformation. Many observers are warning that the midterm elections could involve another big wave of Spanish-language misinformation. As one Democratic strategist told NBC News: “We clearly see that the music is being turned up. It’s not going away.”
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Source: Why is there so much misinformation in the U.S. Latino community? | The Washington Post
