“Messi has supported all the candidates in this electoral campaign,” exclaims Olivia Sohr, Impact Director of the Argentine verification platform Chequeado. The presidential elections, which won the far-right libertarian Javier Milei on November 19, have been marked by an unprecedented proliferation of fake news. An amalgamation of social media accounts favorable to La Libertad Avanza (LLA), which included young influencers, spread the lie that electoral fraud could occur. “But there was no fake news that surpassed the level of formal aggression experienced between the candidates,” adds social media manipulation expert Natalia Aruguete. “Milei even told Patricia Bullrich that she was a terrorist who murdered kindergarten children…” recalls Aruguete.
“We saw misinformation regarding false proposals or statements from the candidates. Many false endorsements from public figures... They are misinformation that is quite cheap to produce. Sometimes what they did was simply use the images that the media use when they do an interview and publish a phrase on networks and modify them with a phrase that has never been said,” explains Sohr. This type of fake news circulated in every direction. Videos in which Sergio Massa supposedly consumed cocaine, false clinical stories about Milei's mental health. Even Lionel Messi said in a manipulated audio that you had to vote for Milei. But all these falsehoods seem childish compared to the accusations of fraud.
“We had prepared ourselves to see something like this because it had already happened in other countries. It was what worried us the most because it calls into question the legitimacy of the system,” says Sohr. If in the US presidential elections Trumpism questioned voting by mail, in the last elections in Brazil it was with electronic voting and now in Argentina it has been the turn of the recount system. “There were many messages from coordinated accounts that showed signs of situations that appeared to be fraud. But in the Argentine double counting system there are always inconsistencies, it is normal and they are always corrected,” explains Aruguete. Leading members of the LLA were forced to admit that they lacked evidence to support such accusations. However, they insisted that that was the “feeling” of the people.
The objective was not to change the vote of those who were already going to vote for Sergio Massa, but to mobilize Milei voters. But the destabilizing effects of such a lie in the event of a Peronist victory could have diminished Massa's legitimacy and created the breeding ground for episodes such as the assault on the United States Capitol or the Congress of Brasilia to occur. “The fraud strategy was profoundly effective in destabilizing, creating a feeling of anxiety, activating voters and mobilizing the structure of prosecutors, expressing and confirming that it was up to them to win the election,” says Aruguete.
“When you manage to install a false idea in your own community, even if a factchecker comes later and says it's a lie, it doesn't matter. The lie that is installed so deeply is very difficult to eradicate, especially in a scenario as hyperpolarized as this election,” says Aruguete, who highlights that LLA's strategy gained momentum due to its decentralization and the use of young influencers to disseminate your messages.
“Each influencer spreads their messages in the form of a network among their communities, which makes them very effective. Milei's digital campaign far surpassed Massa's. Milei became famous all over the world and Massa was not known among a majority of young people in Argentina who consume content of all kinds, mainly via social networks,” she explains.
However, Aruguete highlights that the success of Milei's digital communication strategy and the spread of fake news would not be understood without fatigue with the political system in general. “Especially among young people, who are experiencing very strong precariousness to which is added very significant inflation. The paradox is that we have 6% unemployment and 40% poverty. There is a lot of instability in being able to make sure you make ends meet despite having multiple jobs. That is the context in which voting was done in these elections. Added to this is Milei's advantage in a strategic pulse of the digital ecosystem that made it have greater visibility and be widely known,” he indicates.
“We are not going to transform voters into purely rational beings who will vote solely based on data. That is not how it works. We do not vote only on evidence, there are also emotional issues, of belonging… The check is not going to turn people into rational entities,” reflects Sohr.
Chequeado insists that pointing out lies and inconsistencies continues to have a positive impact. “When we deny information at a time when its virality curve is growing, we manage to flatten that curve, so that fewer people share it and it does not go as far. We will never be able to compete in virality with misinformation, because it is made to be viral, but people don't want to feel manipulated either. If we let them know in time, they are less likely to share it.” Long live the checkup, damn it.
