Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged Tuesday to step up US government resources against disinformation in Spanish, warning of a spike in fictitious reporting -- and violence against journalists -- in Latin America.
Addressing journalists from the region on the sidelines of the week-long Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, Blinken announced that the State Department was launching a new"Digital Communication Network" for Latin America.
Blinken said that the breadth of disinformation was"staggering," pointing to a fictitious story that said Covid-19 was a bioweapon generated in Canada, which had 2.1 million views over 90 days compared with 25,000 engagements with all the World Health Organization's social media. Blinken said that"governments and other actors" have spread disinformation about Covid,"including deliberately targeting Spanish-language social media in this region."