{"id":863210,"date":"2025-07-18T00:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/spanish-language-misinformation-on-los-angeles-protests-pushes-a-familiar-theme\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T00:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:13:08","slug":"spanish-language-misinformation-on-los-angeles-protests-pushes-a-familiar-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/spanish-language-misinformation-on-los-angeles-protests-pushes-a-familiar-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish-language misinformation on Los Angeles protests pushes a familiar theme"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A surge of false or misleading posts, photographs and videos about the Los Angeles protests have been circulating on social media, with many of those shared among Latinos \u2014 mostly in Spanish \u2014 tying the protesters to socialist or communist governments. <\/p>\n

One post on X with over 600,000 views claims that in the U.S., immigration protest groups have links to \u201cthe Venezuelan mafia,\u201d the Communist Party of Cuba, and the Morena Party, the left-wing ruling party of Mexico. But the post doesn\u2019t specify any groups and doesn\u2019t give evidence of this. <\/p>\n

The narrative echoes similar falsehoods that circulated during the 2020 George Floyd protests and the 2024 pro-Palestinian student protests<\/a> on university campuses. <\/p>\n

Parts of Los Angeles and other cities across the country have seen protests against immigration raids as President Donald Trump\u2019s administration enforces a hard-line immigration policy. Dramatic scenes where cars, including Waymo taxis, were set on fire and protesters confronted law enforcement by throwing objects at them have filled social media feeds.<\/p>\n

While some far-left groups have encouraged<\/a> and even glorified violence in the protests, the onslaught of posts, mostly in Spanish, appears to be an attempt to link protests against immigrant raids to leftist Latin American governments, and the posts show support for President Donald Trump and his policies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThough there is always inaccurate information swirling around, there has certainly been a spike since the Los Angeles protests took off,\u201d said Evelyn P\u00e9rez-Verd\u00eda, president of We Are M\u00e1s, which focuses on social impact consulting. \u201cIn the past we would find false or inaccurate information more hidden in platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp. Now it\u2019s more in the open and more easily found on social media and online publications.\u201d<\/p>\n

The falsehoods revive prior conspiracies that the protests are a planned provocation from leftist governments and not a spontaneous response to the immigration raids. On his platform, Truth Social, Trump has baselessly claimed protesters are \u201cPaid Insurrectionists!\u201d <\/p>\n

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have been targets of some of the misinformation that seeks to link them to communism.<\/p>\n

A fake picture of Bass with Cuba\u2019s late leader Fidel Castro, with his arm around her has circulated on social media. The original picture showed Castro with the late activist and former South African President Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n

Bass does have some connections to Cuba; <\/strong>she traveled to the country with the Venceremos Brigade <\/a>in the 1970s to do volunteer construction work and later went there as a member of Congress. She received criticism<\/a> in 2020 for calling Castro\u2019s death \u201ca great loss,<\/a>\u201d but the fake picture is a step further to link her directly with Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing in Spanish is different from what we\u2019re seeing in English,\u201d said P\u00e9rez-Verd\u00eda. In Spanish, she added, the false information is mainly focused on elected officials, like Newsom and Bass. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey talk about the extreme left, communism \u2014 actors, whether domestic or foreign, are changing the messaging based on the community they are targeting,\u201d said P\u00e9rez-Verd\u00eda. <\/p>\n

In some cases, false information has made its way to the federal government. <\/p>\n

Some conservative and pro-Russian social media accounts<\/a> have circulated a video of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum from before the protests, claiming she encouraged them, according to Newsguard<\/a>, a fact-checking website.<\/p>\n

The move was \u201cportrayed as foreign interference in domestic U.S. politics,\u201d Newsguard reported. <\/p>\n

During an oval office briefing Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused<\/a> Sheinbaum of encouraging \u201cviolent protests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum responded on X<\/a>, saying it\u2019s \u201cabsolutely false\u201d and included a video of herself from the day before saying she does not agree with violent actions as a form of protest. She also accused the opposition party<\/a> of falsely saying she incited the protests. <\/p>\n

In some cases, videos and photos that include a hammer and sickle, are taken out of context to make it seem the protests are a communist movement. One post with tens of thousands of views claims that the protests are \u201cURBAN COMMUNIST TERRORISM.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Spanish-language post from an account with over 1 million followers glorifies violence against \u201cprogressive anti-ICE protestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Situations like these create fertile ground for disinformation to spread. Fake accounts in Spanish are more prevalent than they are in English, according to Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University and co-director of its Media Forensic Hub. Social media platforms are more likely to identify and shut down accounts in English than in other languages.<\/p>\n

Linvill said that another reason accounts in Spanish are more common than in English is that the use of marketing companies utilizing fake accounts \u2014 on behalf of political organizations or politicians \u2014 has spiked in the last few years. <\/p>\n

The spread of false information \u201cis absolutely having an effect on driving partisanship, conspiratorial thinking, distrust for expertise and the lack of a sort of shared reality,\u201d said Linvill. \u201cA shared reality is important for us to build compromise and govern nations together. And I think it is absolutely having an effect on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe degree to which motivated actors [bad actors], are responsible, versus the fundamental nature of social media to create a giant game of telephone that virtually generates the spread of false information, it\u2019s hard to say,\u201d Linvill said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n

Carmen Sesin<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Carmen Sesin is a reporter for NBC News based in Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A surge of false or misleading posts, photographs and videos about the Los Angeles protests have been circulating on social media, with many of those shared among Latinos \u2014 mostly in Spanish \u2014 tying the protesters to socialist or communist governments. One post on X with over 600,000 views claims that in the U.S., immigration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":863211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24889,39882],"tags":[5504,127584],"class_list":{"0":"post-863210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-spanish-language","10":"tag-spanish-language"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}