Despite revamped community guidelines and increased efforts to combat election misinformation, Facebook remains rife with unlabeled Spanish-language election misinformation ahead of this year’s midterms -- demonstrating gaps in enforcement of its already permissible policies.

In a recent poll, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) reported that 38% of Latinos “believe it is true, or mostly true, that there was cheating and election fraud in 2020,” despite the lack of evidence. Recent Media Matters reporting showed how despite its election misinformation policies, Spanish-language election misinformation is still widely accessible on YouTube, and the problem also extends to Facebook. With midterms approaching and concerns escalating about the effects that the "Big Lie" will have on Latino voter turnout in November, Meta’s fact-checking partners are calling for more platform accountability.

Meta’s efforts to curb misinformation are uneven on the Spanish side of Facebook

Today, more than a year since a whistleblower said Facebook “enabled misinformation” by prematurely eliminating safeguards after the 2020 election, Spanish-language election misinformation remains unflagged on Facebook, highlighting both issues in its enforcement of existing policies as well as its policies’ shortfalls, which allow misleading narratives and outright misinformation to remain on the platform. 

Facebook’s community standards regarding election misinformation are very narrow in what they say will be removed from the platform, stating, “We remove misinformation that is likely to directly contribute to a risk of interference with people’s ability to participate in those processes.” This specifically involves misinformation about “dates, locations, times, and methods” of elections and other information regarding the voting process. In addition, it has policies against coordinating harm that prohibit posts that may discourage voters from participating in an election, including statements that would call for people to intimidate voters at voting locations or that “voting participation may or will result in law enforcement consequences." 

However, its midterm election-related policies do not prohibit election misinformation about wide-scale fraud or claims that the election was stolen, instead focusing on adding warning labels to posts that are debunked by its fact-checking partners and reducing those posts’ distribution. Facebook touts its high-tech misinformation identification removal processes, writing that its “AI tools both flag likely problems for review and automatically find new instances of previously identified misinformation.” But these efforts have been uneven at best on the Spanish side of Facebook, as the platform has failed to flag election misinformation included in this research that resembles other fact-checked content on the platform.

The examples below demonstrate those inconsistent efforts and include unflagged examples of translated or subtitled promos for the election conspiracy movie 2000 Mules, conspiracy theories about voting machines, and translations of former President Donald Trump’s press releases, tweets, and Truth Social posts that falsely claim there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Dominion & Smartmatic

Despite looming defamation lawsuits against Fox News, the Trump campaign, and lawyer Sidney Powell, Facebook has failed to label dozens of misinformative Spanish-language posts echoing false claims that Dominion and Smartmatic technologies were used to commit fraud in the 2020 presidential election. 

Examples in this section also include clips from popular Spanish-language conservative radio shows that have been shared on Facebook.

• TierraPura, a known Spanish-language misinformer with over 14,000 followers on Facebook, spread Powell’s false claims of Dominion and Smartmatic technology being the source of fraud in Latin American elections: “Once again, Sidney Powell, a lawyer for the legal team of President Trump's campaign, claimed that election fraud has been committed in many countries that use Dominion and Smartmatic software, citing Argentina and Venezuela as examples.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 9/19/20]

• TierraPura also shared a translated Gateway Pundit article promoting Powell’s false claims of “massive voter fraud through Dominion’s voting machines”: “Trump’s lawyer discussed how the campaign is investigating massive voter fraud through Dominion’s voting machines.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 11/18/20]

• Carines Alejandra Moncada, the host of Actualidad Radio’s Cada Tarde, used translated quotes from an Epoch Times article to accuse the Biden administration of suppressing an elections report, even though the federal government found no evidence that flaws in Dominion's voting machines were exploited during the 2020 election. The Epoch Times article was in reference to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's report that found no evidence of fraud. In her post, Moncada shared a partial translation of the article and criticized “top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency” after they “urged the Court not to allow the release of a report analyzing Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment in Georgia,” citing national security concerns.  [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 2/13/22]

• Estamos Unidos, a right-wing blog with over 17,000 followers, shared a translated Gateway Pundit article spreading conspiracy theories about former Dominion employee Eric Coomer tampering with election results: “#FightAgainstLeftistMafia - The head of security for the anti-Trump voting system Dominion, was part of an Antifa phone call and shared an anti-Trump Antifa manifesto online … Estamos Unidos … It is time to act.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 11/15/20]

• On an episode of The Dania Show shared on Facebook, Americano Media’s Dania Alexandrino echoed Powell’s false claims that Dominion voting machines were designed to secretly switch votes: “There has been voter fraud, by the way, there have been recounts, there have been ballots that have shown up in Georgia that were not counted. There have been reports of these irregular recounts .... Sidney Powell, the lawyer leading President Trump’s legal group in some of these lawsuits, and was also a lawyer for Michael Flynn, said that she has an affidavit from a high-ranking military official claiming  Smartmatic, the software used by Dominion Voting, was designed to change votes without being detected.” [Facebook, The Dania Show, translated from Spanish, 11/18/20]

• In an earlier episode of The Dania Show shared on Facebook, Alexandrino claimed there was a “glitch” that removed 6,000 or more votes that belonged to Trump and gave them to President Joe Biden: “In several cities, in several states, including in California, with the system that they used, they found a glitch, a failure. I think it was in Michigan, where they had given Biden 6,000 or so votes that belonged to Trump. That same glitch was found in several cities and several local legislatures, where Democrats had supposedly won, and when they discovered that same glitch in those cities, it turned out the Republicans should have ended up winning!” [Facebook, The Dania Show, translated from Spanish,11/11/20]

• On an episode of her daily news show shared on Facebook, Americano Media personality Isabel Cuervo made the false claim that Dominion voting machines committed an “extraordinary number” of errors that could have altered the election results: The conservative radio host with more than 9,000 followers on Facebook said, “A forensic audit conducted on about 22 Dominion Voting Systems voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, confirmed that the machines produce an extraordinary number of errors that make it possible to alter election results.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 12/21/20]

• In a different episode shared on Facebook, Cuervo allowed her guests to falsely claim that the Smartmatic software “destroyed and obliterated one of the most important phases of the electoral process”: “What is going on with Smartmatic? What is happening with this software? These machines destroy and obliterate perhaps one of the most important phases of the electoral process, which is scrutinizing and validating the votes to be counted. … What is happening with this software [is that] they have a central control base connected to all voting centers. … So at any given moment, they can change the results and turn them into those famous 51 - 49’s that we have seen in so many other countries.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 11/18/20]

2000 Mules

2000 Mules is an election-denial movie produced by right-wing pundit and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza. The movie, which is based on false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, was produced in partnership with True the Vote, a QAnon-affiliated nonprofit that pushed conspiracy theories of election fraud and is being sued for defamation after accusing an American election-logistics software company of plotting “a red Chinese communist op run against the United States.”

Earlier this year, an official Meta Spanish-language fact-checking partner, TelevisaUnivision – which also provides WhatsApp users with in-app, IFCN-certified, fact-checking services – debunked several of the movie's central claims, concluding, “2000 Mules does not show proof of the alleged electoral fraud.” 

Below are examples of Spanish-language promos for 2000 Mules that remain unlabeled on Facebook.

• César Vidal, a Spanish YouTube conspiracy theorist with over 72,000 followers on Facebook, shared a video blog promoting 2000 Mules and claimed “the fraud in favor of Biden could have been even greater,” speculating there were likely “810,000 illegal votes”: Vidal said, “The truth is that the fraud that could be in favor of Joe Biden could have been even greater since the study was carried out on the basis of only 2,000 Mules. But it is more than possible that the actual number exceeded 54,000. If they only visited five vote collection points and deposited only three illegal votes, we would find ourselves 810,000 illegal votes.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 6/14/22]

• Divulgacion Total, a right-wing blog with more than 30,000 followers, shared a link to a subtitled version of the official 2000 Mules trailer. [Facebook, 5/8/22]

• Estamos Unidos shared screenshots from the election-denial movie along with translated appeals to Republicans to “never to accept a #stolenelection”: “#2000Mules. What is the GOP going to do about this? Folks, it's up to ‘we the people’ never to accept a #stolenelection.”  [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 5/28/22]

• Estamos Unidos also shared a translation of Trump’s tweet claiming, “2000 Mules conclusively shows the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen.” [Facebook, 5/6/22]

• Americano Media’s Freddy Silva shared a subtitled trailer, along with a link to a Spanish-language version of the election conspiracy movie 2000 Mules: The conservative radio personality, with over 5,000 followers on Facebook, said, “For all the ‘deniers’ who still say, ‘Where is there evidence of fraud?’ Here is a documentary that does the research and that exposes how they did fraud in the 2020 election.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 5/19/22]

• SOS Cubano, a right-wing blog with more than 61,000 followers, shared a subtitled clip of the election conspiracy theory movie 2000 Mules and accused “piece of shit” Facebook of “betraying our country”: “Gentlemen, an investigation about the biggest fraud in the history of this great nation has been released. It is called 2000 Mules. Now the world will witness how the disinformation media and this piece of shit platform participated in this great betrayal of our homeland. ” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 5/8/22]

• Right-wing blog Precinto Carolina Norte, which has over 21,000 followers, hinted at the movie’s QAnon ties, claiming the “2Q2Q” election conspiracy “documentary” is a “must watch”: “Must watch this movie (documentary) about fraud and all of that on November 3 2Q2Q.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 5/3/22]

• El American’s Anna Paulina Luna, who is also running to represent Florida’s 13th Congressional District and has over 100,000 followers on Facebook, shared a link to the 2000 Mules official website along with step-by-step instructions for how to find tickets for the movie. [Facebook, 5/19/22]

• The popular conservative publication El Republican shared an alternative electoral map showing what the result “should have been in 2020,” as shown in the election-denial movie, 2000 Mules.  [Facebook, 5/9/22]

Trump’s conspiracy theories and false rhetoric

Despite having banned Trump from the platform last year, Facebook has been unable to curb the spread of his conspiracy theories, including when his rhetoric has been translated into Spanish. 

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2020, Meta specifically banned the use of the “stop the steal” phrase for violating their Coordinating Harm policies.

The examples below show unflagged translations of Trump’s press releases, tweets, and Truth Social posts, which amplify similar false claims of election fraud that contributed to the violence at the Capitol during the January 6 riot.

• Divulgacion Total shared a translation of Trump’s Truth Social post in which he claimed the FBI committed “massive fraud and election interference at a level never seen before.” [Facebook, 8/29/22]

• Divulgacion Total also shared a translation of Trump’s Truth social post claiming, “The FBI and DOJ have been caught in a massive and determinative election rigging scam.” [Facebook, 9/5/22]

• Divulgacion Total shared a translation of Trump’s Truth Social post in which he claims the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and stolen. [Facebook, 9/7/22]

• The Epoch Times En Español, the Spanish-language forum for the misinformative right-wing outlet, shared translated quotes from a Trump press conference in which the former president claimed, “The media and the Democratic party lied to the American people to try to steal the election”: “President Donald Trump sent a message to the nation on Tuesday explaining why he is determined to pursue all legal and constitutional avenues to ‘stop the theft of the presidential election,’ calling on the American people to ‘speak up’ and demand correction of this injustice. .... The media and the Democratic party lied to the American people to steal the election.⁠” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 12/23/20]

• Americano Media’s Nelson Rubio shared a translation of a Trump tweet thread that praised the faulty evidence presented by the former president’s Voter Fraud Commission, claiming, “There were 289,000 excess (fraudulent) votes” during the 2020 presidential election: “‘Lott's new study estimates that there were 11,350 absentee votes for Trump were eliminated in Georgia. Another 289,000 ‘excess (fraudulent) votes’ in GA, AZ, MI, NV, PA, and WI,' wrote President Trump.” [Facebook, translated from Spanish, 12/31/20]

• Siguiendo a la Noticia, a Spanish-language right-wing blog with over 113,000 followers, shared a screenshot of one of Trump’s Truth Social posts claiming Democrats know mail-in-voting is “corrupt.” Earlier this month, Siguiendo la Noticia announced Facebook had “restricted” its video-sharing abilities. However, any restrictions Meta might have set were not permanent, as the account was back to posting live-streams of Trump’s rallies and sharing content from other problematic actors within a few days of the original announcement. [Facebook, 8/28/22] 

• Estamos Unidos shared a translation of a Trump Truth Social post claiming “the FBI was paying people to steal the 2020 presidential election.” [Facebook, 9/14/22]