Latinos who depend on Spanish-language social media for news are more susceptible to misinformation, a new study shows. This vital research spotlights the critical need for robust fact-checking and content moderation in Spanish-language digital spaces.
Latinos who predominantly consume news from Spanish-language social media are significantly more likely to believe false political narratives compared to those who use English-language platforms, according to a revealing study published in PNAS Nexus.
Conducted by political scientists from the University of California, San Diego and New York University, the research underscores rising concerns about misinformation targeting Spanish-speaking communities in the United States.
“Latino voters are heavily courted in U.S. elections, and there has been much speculation on the reasons behind their increase in Republican support in the 2024 Presidential contest,” corresponding author Marisa Abrajano, a professor of political science at UC San Diego, said in a news release. “Understanding their news and information sources on social media, especially as it pertains to political misinformation, is an important factor to consider.”
The study’s findings emphasize a stark contrast: Latinos relying on Spanish-language social media are 11 to 20 percentage points more likely to believe in false stories than their peers consuming English-language news. These results held true even when accounting for variables like the primary language spoken at home and potential survey biases.
The research team, coordinated by NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP), involved more than 1,100 Latino Facebook and Instagram users in the United States. The participants, incentivized monetarily, spanned English-dominant, bilingual and Spanish-dominant individuals. The surveyed false narratives included misconceptions about Venezuelan immigrants, the status of Planned Parenthood clinics post-Roe v. Wade ruling and erroneous claims on COVID-19 vaccine impacts.
“While there’s been widespread concern about the prevalence of Spanish-language misinformation on social media, our study is the first to empirically demonstrate its impact on political knowledge among Latino communities in the United States,” co-author Jonathan Nagler, a co-director of NYU’s CSMaP, said in the news release. “We’ve established a crucial link between the consumption of Spanish-language social media and a less informed electorate.”
In a related, forthcoming study in the journal Political Research Quarterly, researchers further explore Latino online political engagement, revealing similarities with non-Hispanic whites on major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter). However, WhatsApp emerged as a uniquely influential platform for Latinos, who frequently use it for political discourse and news sharing.
This comprehensive research utilized both survey responses and digital trace data, providing an in-depth understanding of actual online behaviors beyond self-reported activities. The findings spotlight YouTube as a common information source for both Latinos and non-Hispanic whites, raising flags about the platform’s ongoing challenges with misinformation.
Spanish-speaking Latinos notably engage with political content from Latin America, forming a cross-border information ecosystem that influences their perceptions and beliefs. These research insights pose significant implications for U.S. democracy, stressing the urgency of targeted fact-checking and enhanced content moderation for Spanish-language digital content.
The study sheds light on the crucial need to address digital misinformation disparities impacting linguistic communities, aiming to foster a well-informed electorate across diverse platforms and languages.