Advertisement

The Times podcast: Social media’s Latino misinformation problem

A finger poised over icons on an iPhone
An iPhone displays the apps for Facebook and Messenger.
(Jenny Kane / Associated Press )
Share

Last month, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen revealed she had released thousands of documents that showed how the company knew about yet did little to curb harmful content for its billions of users. Those documents also showed that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, knew disinformation on its platforms was particularly corrosive to Latino communities — yet the company did little to stop it.

Today, we talk about the damage and what activists are doing to try to stop it.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: L.A. Times technology reporter Brian Contreras, and Equis Research and Equis Labs co-founder Stephanie Valencia

Advertisement

More reading:

What Facebook knew about its Latino-aimed disinformation problem

Misinformation online is bad in English. But it’s far worse in Spanish

Facebook struggled with disinformation targeted at Latinos

About The Times

“The Times” is made by columnist Gustavo Arellano, senior producers Denise Guerra and Shannon Lin and producer Melissa Kaplan. Our engineer is Mario Diaz. Our editors are Lauren Raab and Shani O. Hilton. Our theme song was composed by Andrew Eapen.
Advertisement