The Latin American Report # 523

Today, I’ve genuinely felt more frustrated than usual after arguing with three friends living abroad. The damage caused by misinformation and psychological manipulation on social media is enormous—I’d even say violent. Of course, phenomena like these, or polarization, aren’t new at all. The issue is that they now reproduce at scale. And, naturally, it’s not just about what a disinformation agent does and the vulnerability of their targets—there’s a sociopolitical, technoscientific, and historical foundation that creates the conditions for the former to do his/her task and the latter to fall for it. Among the factors enabling this situation are the manipulative rhetoric of (populist) parties and leaders, deep-rooted social issues, and people’s widespread inability to maintain a decent, coherent, data-based information diet.

Today, a debate in the WhatsApp group I share with these friends—former university classmates—started with a video shared by F, who lives in Spain. As far as I understand, it’s an excerpt from a press conference by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, where he defends his position of not yielding to American pressure—specifically, Trump’s—to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP. Beyond whether Sánchez’s motivations are pure, I think the outcome is correct. What’s the justification, based on European and particularly Spanish national security, for pumping more money into the defense industry? But anyway, my friend F, who’s extremely anti-Sánchez, wasn’t as interested in this debate—which, of course, has other dimensions—but rather in the fact that the PSOE leader implied he had the support of most Spaniards. He sees this as an expression of Sánchez’s “cynicism” because he perceives something way different in society. His empirical observation might be true—though the seasoned Spanish politician is very resilient—but the question I asked F was: How often does a president, no matter how unpopular, bow his head and say, “People don’t want me, I’m leaving"?

Later, my Spain-based friend posted a Google results page photo showing, at the top, the headline of an article from the state-owned channel RTVE, and below, a response to a question suggesting that the article claimed half of sexual offenders in Spain are immigrants. This is a basic disinformation technique—a photo claiming something without a link for context—with a simple antidote: checking the source to see if it’s true (people simply don´t have time for this, or feel safe assuming what seems good to their judgment). The actual RTVE article says nothing of the sort, though it does offer an interesting and contrasting perspective on the issue, somewhat in line with F’s stance. On the contrary, when I Googled the quote in the image, the only match was an article published on VOX’s official website.

I call this friendly fire because I’m sure F is a victim here—a victim of "friendly fire" from VOX and the Spanish far-right’s disinformation campaigns, from which he’s unfortunately absorbed all the worst aspects (I assume they have some good ones): xenophobia, polarization, a cult of rhetoric over data, etc. Right now, I don’t know if my friend realizes he fell into a trap, and that frustrates me. Statistically, the likelihood of an immigrant being a sexual offender—that is, within this social group—is indeed higher than that of a Spaniard, significantly so. But the latest official data shows they represent around 37% of those arrested for crimes against sexual freedom (8,631 Spaniards vs. 5,136 foreigners).

But it didn’t end there. He also shared a video from a Spanish YouTuber—you can guess, far-right on the political spectrum—reviewing a set of projects funded by the Spanish government abroad. I assume the idea is to push the narrative that while Sánchez refuses to spend on defense, he’s wasting taxpayer money on shady projects in Colombia or Palestine. F’s position here is that he doesn’t want to spend on international development, especially when he believes there are so many problems at home. That’s a valid, plausible stance. The concern is that foreign aid in that pace and substance didn’t start with Sánchez; it’s a historical state policy, not tied to the ruling party, and very common in the West. It’s also an elite-driven issue, part of a powerful bureaucracy that sees the process as a business.

The last point debated was Sánchez’s "cynicism." My friend F specifically mentioned a controversial amnesty law currently under review in the courts and its connection to how Sánchez retained power during the last election. I told him that yes, the current Spanish PM played dirty, but in the end, that’s politics. His actions were ethically questionable and certainly don’t reflect well on him, but the fact is that when the votes were counted, he had more than his opponents, who supposedly had everything going for them to oust him from La Moncloa. Alliances—sometimes very difficult ones, like those Sánchez has engineered—are part of the political equation everywhere. I drew a parallel with Milei, who, during his campaign, called his now-minister of Security a murderer. As José Martí said: In politics, what’s real is what you don’t see."

This is all for today, I will be very well served if you have and share any feedback on this issue.