Misinformation Swirls in Non-English Languages Ahead of Midterms

Unfounded rumors and outright disinformation spread widely in immigrant communities ahead of the 2020 presidential election, researchers say. That happened again before the midterm elections. This year targeted audiences in more languages ​​on more topics and on more digital platforms, with less opposition from social media companies.

In recent weeks, posts exaggerating the effects of inflation have targeted Americans from Latin American countries already crippled by economic mismanagement. Conspiracy theories spread in August about Internal Revenue Service Plans for an “Army of Shadows” According to research group Zignal, mentions of “Ejército IRS” increased along with “IRS army.”

Spread of misinformation in Chinese on Twitter, YouTube and WeChat about mail-in ballots, school curriculum and hate crimes “has dangerous effects” this year on voters Asian Americans who developed as a political forceby advocacy group Asian Americans Advocate for Justice – AAJC.

Nick Nguyen, co-founder of Viet Fact Check, a group dedicated to providing explanations for the misinformation spreading among Vietnamese-Americans, said: “There is definitely a hyper-targeting of news coverage. message. “This is where not being fluent in English can leave people vulnerable.”

Viet Fact Check is among a growing number of groups trying to contextualize and debunk false stories online in languages ​​other than English. Factchequeado, a six-month-old Spanish-speaking service, is checking incorrect translationthe image is manipulated and wrong edited video about Mar-a-Lago’s search and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit Taiwan. Desifacts, which focuses on South Asian American communities, has begun publishing explanations and clarifications on topics such as immigration and student debt relief in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil in February.

But multilingual fact-checkers say they can’t keep up with the prevalence of falsehoods online. They have called on major social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, to do more work on other languages ​​as well as on misinformation in English.

“With misinformation and misinformation in Spanish, we felt like we were fighting a real problem,” said Tamoa Calzadilla, managing editor of Factchequeado and former head of fact-checking for Univision. giant man. “It’s frustrating because we’re trying to do something and we need support from the platforms – we’re doing our job, but Big Tech can do so much more.”

The social media companies say they moderated content or provided credentials in multiple languages: more than 70 for TikTok and more than 60 for Meta, which owns Facebook. YouTube said it had more than 20,000 people review and remove misinformation, including in languages ​​like Mandarin and Spanish; TikTok says it has thousands. The companies declined to say how many employees are working in languages ​​other than English.

TikTok has translated a midterm information center on its app into more than 45 languages. Twitter has a similar vote center available in English and Spanish, along with debugged and Misinformation “pre-bunk” in different languages. Meta says that it has invested in initiatives such as Spain’s authenticity verification service on WhatsApp in preparation for the election, and that it will display voting-related notifications in full English. English and second language based on user activity.

The companies also cite improvements more widely. Meta says its Spanish-language misinformation prediction models in the US are now performing on par with English models and have significantly increased the amount of Spanish-language content sent to people fact check for review. Twitter says its newly redesigned context labels, which are translated based on users’ language settings, have helped reduce interactions with misinformation. YouTube says dashboards are now available in different languages ​​for certain video and search results. It also highlights content from non-English news sources that have been moderated based on users’ language settings and search queries, the company said.

But researchers worry about the effect of non-English misinformation on the upcoming vote, with lies and rumors in other languages ​​continuing to spread. One report released on Monday from watchdog group Media Matters found 40 Spanish-language videos on YouTube promoting misinformation about US elections, including the misconception that fraudulent ballots reach the US from China and Mexico.

Some disinformation experts, along with some elected officials, have pressed social platforms to act and be more transparent.

This year, the Spanish Congress Caucus promoted Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter for meetings with their top executives to discuss the spread of misinformation in Spanish. YouTube has provided its chief executive officer, Susan Wojcicki; TikTok and Twitter have sent other executives. The caucus and Meta were unable to schedule a meeting, and Meta said they planned to send a written update instead.

The International Fact Checking Network in Poynter sent an open letter took to YouTube in January, describing how easily misinformation on the platform spills across borders. Researchers have said the same story often appears on different websites in different countries, and then cross-pollination in a feedback loop makes it seem more believable. As one verifier argues, an immigrant is more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory voiced by both his or her mother in El Salvador and a friend in San Francisco.

Misinformation can also make what researchers call a platform jump – originating in English on fringe services like Truth Social or Gab and then appearing later on major websites. more consistent, presented in another language, or sometimes accompanied by a misleading translation.

Alethea Group, which helps corporations protect against misinformation, recently reviewed seven YouTube channels that are based in Colombia but appear to target conservative Hispanic speakers living or attached to associated with the United States. The researchers found that these channels often take false or misleading stories from conservative or foreign state media, repeat it on YouTube in Spanish, and then sometimes when directing viewers to platforms like Twitter and Telegram, where translated content continues to go viral. At times, channel operators have attempted to monetize videos through advertising or asking for donations or subscriptions.

Alethea discovered that an account with more than 300,000 subscribers rewrote and translated existing stories with no evidence that the FBI intentionally installed documents at Mar-a-Lago to entice former President Donald J. Trump, according to reports. The title of one video was “S4LE LA V3RDAD” instead of “sale la verdad” (the truth revealed), which Alethea researchers believe may be a hidden attempt to evade YouTube moderators. Other researchers have discovered accounts, previously terminated by platforms for violating misinformation guidelines, have reincarnated under different aliases.

Dominik A. Stecula, assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University and an immigrant from Poland, attributes the spread of multilingual misinformation online in part to the slow decline. lack of local ethnic media coverage of community issues.

“People don’t want to pay for content, and as a result a lot of these organizations are falling apart,” said Mr. Stecula. “What replaced them was just some guy in Arizona with a high-definition camera and a microphone.”

Mr. Stecula noted how complicated censorship is by cultural nuances and diverse communication preferences, explaining that while immigrants from Asia tend to prefer WhatsApp, those from Brazil Lan is often attracted to Facebook.

Some experts suspect that all multilingual misinformation can be dismissed, promoting other ways to limit amplification instead. Last year, Twitter tested a feature allowed some users in the US, South Korea and Australia to flag tweets as misleading.

Evelyn Pérez-Verdía, head of strategy at consulting firm We Are Más, in South Florida, estimates that tens of thousands of people have followed Spanish-language channels on Telegram promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. She said she learned about a group, with nearly 8,000 subscribers, from her Colombian-American hairstylist.

She said such groups have been “very clever to make sure the message is tailored based on culture and subculture”, sometimes exploiting icons like raised fist, which can represent hope and solidarity for young people born in the United States, while also reminding older immigrants of leftist dictatorships in Latin America. The posts mixed anti-communist sentiment with conspiratorial QAnon language, calling President Biden “el Lagartija” (The Lizard) while describing his party as “Demoniocratas” (Democratic Party).

“It’s not just about misinformation or misinformation – there’s also a responsibility to understand that words and symbols mean different things to other communities,” said Ms. Pérez-Verdía. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re from Vietnam or Colombia – most people see our country’s politics through their political lens.”