EMERGENCY PRESS BRIEFING: Members of Congress, Advocates to Announce Action Plan to Fight Facebook's Spanish-Language Disinformation Crisis
WASHINGTON — Please join us on Tues., March 16, at noon EST as members of Congress and leading racial-justice activists call on Facebook to address the rampant Spanish-language disinformation that’s spreading across its platforms.
The launch of the #YaBastaFacebook initiative will include an announcement of significant new policy asks and demands of Facebook, and the release of a new video and findings about the company’s Spanish-language disinformation crisis. Advocates will call out Facebook for disrespecting the Latinx community, and demand solutions.
WHAT: #YaBastaFacebook Emergency Briefing: Press call and briefing, including the release of exclusive video, demands and policy platform
WHEN: Tues., March 16, at noon EST
WHO: Rep. Tony Cardenas (D–California), confirmed; Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D–New Mexico), invited; Jessica Cobian (Center for American Progress), Carmen Scurato (Free Press Action), Jessica J. González (Free Press Action) and Brenda Victoria Castillo (National Hispanic Media Coalition).
RSVP to ben@the-citizens.com for dial-in information
The press call will include a Q&A with participants and release of the policy platform. There will be speakers in both English and Spanish. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Free Press Action, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Real Facebook Oversight Board.
Background:
In 2020, Facebook announced a series of policy updates and enforcement actions to address militias and election misinformation. Multiple civil-rights, racial-justice and internet-accountability organizations immediately flagged Spanish-language content that violated Facebook’s newly updated content-moderation policies.
Violations included election misinformation — including candidate disinformation, polling/voting misinformation and “stop the steal” content. Other disinformation includes COVID vaccine conspiracy theories and other racially charged content intended to divide the Latinx community against other races. One post in particular —a call to arms in Spanish, depicting several photos of armed white men, women and militia groups with a caption urging white individuals to stand up and defend their lives, their flag and their country with pride — is still visible to Facebook users today.
In November, the groups organizing this call, along with several partners, sent a series of demands to Facebook that have gone unmet.
