Spanish-language misinformation: Cuban migrants and Miami-Dade school board narratives

Hey everyone! I hope your Friday isn’t too rainy.

It’s Lesley Cosme Torres again, here with the latest on Spanish-language disinformation in South Florida elections. This week following the primaries, I’ve looked into controversial comments made by Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez about Cuban migrants, rumors that the Miami-Dade School Board is trying to indoctrinate its students and infiltrate schools with a communist agenda, a new YouTube channel created by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus aiming to combat Spanish-language disinformation, and LGBTQ disinformation coming from Spanish-language radio and proliferating on social media.

In disinformation monitoring news, Univision Noticias’ fact-checking program, elDetector, the first of its kind in the United States, will join Meta’s Fact-Checking Network. Users will be able to access elDetector’s services via the Univision Noticias to verify information they have questions about. Spanish speakers will also be able to ask questions directly to the news verification team by sending texts via WhatsApp to 1-786-685-8284.

“Having Univision’s elDetector as a certified International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) member is very important, due to its reach in Spanish-speaking communities in the United States,” Ferdi Ferhat Özsoy, IFCN’s program manager, said to Univision. “Misinformation has cost too many lives around the world during the pandemic. The Spanish-speaking community has been one of the hardest hit by covid-19 in the United States, that is why it is very important to have fact-checkers in Spanish within the IFCN network who can provide verified and trustworthy information,” added Özsoy.

And I want to reiterate, if you read or hear anything you find misleading or your grandmother’s talking to you about some fringe conspiracy theory she saw on a WhatsApp channel she was added to, email me.

Enjoy your weekend!

Lesley

Is misrepresenting what someone said the same as spreading disinformation?

On Aug. 19, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez appeared on Actualidad Radio and made comments that Cubans who appear in Florida “illegally” should be bused out of state to Delaware, President Biden’s home state. Our paper reported that during a press conference, Miami Latino Democrats criticized Nuñez for advancing immigration policies they say affect Cubans who are fleeing a communist regime. But Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Gov. Ron DeSantis, and the new Conservative Hispanic media company, Americano Media, said the comment was taken out of context, and in doing so, Democrats are spreading disinformation.

When Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried tweeted that it was wrong for Nuñez, a Cuban-American, to say that newly entered Cubans should be “deported north by bus,” Pushaw pushed back, saying that Nuñez actually drew the distinction between what should happen to “legal” and “illegal” immigrants.

On Aug. 22, Nuñez appeared on Americano Media to respond to criticism by Miami Democrats and the Fried campaign. In a series of tweets, Americano quoted Nuñez saying, “When we learned the Biden administration was bringing illegal immigrants in the dead of night to Florida, the governor put in place legislation to implement a program where, perhaps people would be sent to sanctuary states…There’s an asylum process, including Cubans who come for political reasons, not economic reasons. Democratic operatives with agents in the press and social media tried to mislead and misrepresent that program.”

Are Miami-Dade schools actually trying to indoctrinate their students into believing in Marxism and Communism?

Rhetoric about “indoctrination” of students in Miami-Dade schools is rapidly spreading over Telegram and radio shows like Radio Mambí and La Poderosa. Gov. DeSantis has taken steps to stop Florida schools from talking about issues like race and sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom. Most recently, on Aug. 31, La Poderosa brought on a guest to talk about how there are socialists on the Miami-Dade School Board who are attempting to infiltrate schools with their political agendas, corrupting students. These biased accusations about School Board members being socialists with an agenda are aimed at schools that seek to teach students about race, gender and sexual identity.

The guest went on to talk about his organization, Teaching Anti-Communism in America, which consists of a group of leaders in Miami responsible for pushing the Civic Education Curriculum through the Florida Legislature in 2021.

It’s talk, yet it’s effective. After the midterms, both conservative School Board candidates in Miami-Dade won their elections, flipping the board conservative and making the county the largest one in America with a conservative school board majority.

“WakeupwithLinda and RedPillBabe are an example of what just 2 people can accomplish in Mami-Dade. 100k new Hispanic registered voters alone. from school boards, to endorsing candidates, to getting volunteers active in poll-watching, basically activating an entire community. It’s very white pilling. Just two mostly peaceful Latinos who are anti-communists and what to see change,” Wakeupwithlinda, a conservative Telegram channel, forwarded to its audience Aug. 24.

The goal, when these channels talk about teachers, the Miami-Dade School Board and parents, seems to be in hopes of dividing parents from their kid’s teachers.

“Wake up! The teachers Unions are leading the fight against you for your children. What parents have had to face at the hands of the Union and their proxies is criminal. Doxxing, harassment, voter intimidation. Its enough to make someone sick. Miami is not isolated. Teachers make up the biggest and most influential unions in the country. Their political power cannot be underestimated. They attempt to discredit parents who challenge decades of unchecked power,” Redpillbabe, a conservative Telegram channel wrote Aug. 19.

The campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus starts a YouTube channel, Ya Tú Sabes!

CHC BOLD PAC, the campaign side of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, launched Ya Tú Sabes! It’s a new YouTube show that aims to combat Spanish-language misinformation and provide Latino voters around the country with videos that are educational and can resonate culturally. The videos will be hosted by actress Gabriela Fresquez in both Spanish and English, and occasionally Spanglish. Each video will have a summary in Spanish that will allow viewers to share the content through social media channels like WhatsApp. Aside from the channel, CHC BOLD PAC is also providing messaging guidance to members of Congress on how to communicate to Latinos. It’ll be following up on the misinformation that proliferated following the events of Jan. 6, as well as holding Republicans accountable, a CHC BOLD PAC spokesperson told me. Their priority is to communicate in Spanish but to also include English to reach a younger generation of Latinos.

“A lot of Republican members of Congress are bilingual. When they do interviews in English, they look moderate, but when they do interviews in Spanish, they’re very radical,” Diana Castañeda, the communications director for CHC BOLD PAC, said.. Their ideas and political beliefs seem to be more intense when interviewed in Spanish versus when they’re interviewed in English, she added. The type of language they use is different.

In addition to monitoring what specific candidates in Florida say, they’ll also be tracking conservative radio stations, YouTube channels, and Hispanic news shows and outlets. “Basically we want to know what these Republican members are saying in Spanish,” Castañeda added.

In the first video, Fresquez explains the purpose for the videos as a space for thoughtful conversations about issues that affect Latinos, like the current economic downturn and the most recent video about Biden’s Student Loan Debt Relief. “Fresquez makes use of Spanglish to weave through heavy topics and light commentaries about Latino culture. She also uses common features of the culture, like how the smell of Vicks VapoRub brings back memories of childhood, to talk about issues like access to healthcare,” Latino Rebels reported.

Disinformation against the LGBTQ community coming from right-wing influencers is spreading on Spanish-language radio and social media

Right-wing personalities in Spanish-language radio and social media have spread continuous disinformation about Pride events and gay representation in popular media, specifically saying being transgender is a “mental illness” pushed by “perverted” Democrats. GLAAD’s 2022 Social Media Safety Index concluded that major social media platforms in the U.S. — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok — have failed to provide a welcoming environment for LGBTQ users, including not monitoring or taking down rampant Spanish-language misinformation and right-wing conspiracies thriving on their platforms. This has led to anti-LGBTQ attacks proliferating across social media platforms.

In an email to the Miami Herald, Orlando Gonzales, Executive Director of SAVE, an LGBTQ organization in South Florida, elaborated on the anti-trans messages in local Hispanic media.

“The most recent example is an article published by Diario Las Américas on June 29 criticizing and misrepresenting the Biden administration’s support for transgender rights… Instead of telling the stories of the real damage done to our fellow Floridians by anti-LGBTQ legislation, Diario Las Americas chose to stoke fears that children are being targeted and that politicians who support LGBTQ rights want to ‘turn our children into homosexuals’ or ‘give them sex changes,’ a loaded term that sensationalizes the thoughtful and careful work that medical professionals provide to trans people.”

On her show Cada Tarde, conservative South Florida radio host Carines Moncada claimed that children are being “indoctrinated” to undergo gender-confirmation surgeries and suggested that is a cause for high rates of suicide attempts in the LGBTQ community.

Moncada said: “Now, it turns out that because I asked if a woman is the only one who can give birth, who can breastfeed and have children, that’s the reason transgenders commit suicide in this country. Why are we not thinking about the number of children who are being raised — they are mentally manipulated — who are being indoctrinated to remove their intimate parts, to mutilate their breasts and stunt their development. … And then, when they feel they made a mistake, that they are lost, that this is not what they really wanted, but rather that they were manipulated by this diabolical agenda, then it’s my fault that one of these people commits suicide?” [Actualidad Radio, Cada Tarde, 7/12/22, audio recording pulled from Media Matters for America].

This newsletter is part of a project on misinformation in Spanish-language media by the Miami Herald and researchers at Florida International University. It is funded by Journalism Funding Partners, which received support from the Knight Disinformation Fund at The Miami Foundation. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of the content.