Elections, Covid and Cuba, the hubs of disinformation in Latin America in 2021

EFE Verifies Disinformation 2021

Bogotá, Dec. 23 (EFE). Elections in 11 countries, protests in Cuba and Colombia, and mass vaccination of the Covid-19 virus focused on the disinformation that spread on social networks in Latin America in 2021, where there was dangerous advice about false treatments to fight SARS-CoV-2 infection. Observation and voting restrictions

Mexico on June 6 held the largest elections in its history to renew the Chamber of Deputies, 15 of 32 governors, 35 local congresses, and 1,900 city councils.

Days before the vote, a purported statement was widely circulated in which the National Electoral Institute (INE) announced that it would install hidden cameras to “discover voters who sold their votes” and – in this case – detain, judge and punish them with “corporal punishment, as prescribed by law.” “.

The Mexican Electoral College denied this falsehood through all of its channels, and recalled that the vote was secret, as stipulated in the constitution.

This deception coincided with disagreements between the National Electoral Institute and the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who accused the Electoral College of censorship and of orchestrating election fraud in the past.

In Colombia, misleading content about the elections is gaining more ground as the presidential elections are due in May 2022. In this context, Venezuelan citizens organized by the temporary protection law announced by the Colombian circulated on social networks. government in February.

With this argument, dozens criticized the decision of the president, Ivan Duque, considering it responding to political and electoral interests, with the suspicion that he did so to win the votes of Venezuelans.

In fact, this measure legalizes the immigration status of Venezuelans in Colombia, but does not grant them citizenship, which is a basic requirement to vote in the presidential election.

Nor is it true that the government of then-Peruvian President Francisco Sagaste in April ordered an “absolute standstill” of the Peruvian Armed Forces and National Police (PNP) to prevent them from voting in the first round of the April 11 presidential election. The Ministries of Defense and Interior denied the authenticity of this message.

On the other hand, it took a month and a half for leftist candidate Pedro Castillo to be declared the winner of the presidential election because the other candidate, Keiko Fujimori, accused him without evidence of alleged “fraud”.

False treatments and vaccines that grow organisms

With at least 47,000 million infections and 1.5 million deaths, misinformation about the pandemic continues to spread in Latin America. Several publications have cited treatments without scientific endorsement such as hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, or chlorine dioxide.

A group of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) “strongly” advised against the use of hydroxychloroquine, while the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emphasized ivermectin on its website that “taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm.”

Chlorine dioxide also does not work against COVID-19. Some of the adverse effects associated with its consumption are respiratory failure, changes in the electrical activity of the heart, and hypotension caused by dehydration.

On the other hand, it’s not true that Messenger RNA covid-19 vaccines, such as those from Pfizer or Moderna, make women’s breasts grow, as a user with thousands of views claimed in August in a TikTok video.

It may be, according to experts, temporary swelling of the lymph nodes in the armpit.

Citing figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this condition “can occur in about 11.6% of people after the first dose of Moderna vaccine is given. And in 16% after the second dose.”

In addition, the “stress schedule” spread on social networks is wrong, which supposedly reveals the entire calendar of a conspiracy to spread about twenty different types of the Covid-19 virus on specific dates, starting from the delta, until February 2023.

In fact, the table is nothing more than a reproduction of the Greek alphabet from the letter delta, along with a list of easily placed successive dates that do not correspond to the evolution of the virus.

The calendar has recently spread again after the discovery of the omicron variant.

Lies about the protests in Cuba and the extermination of Haiti

Social unrest in the region erupted in Colombia, where the illusion spread that if a month of strike was reached, the constitution would be forced to change, and Cuba, with historic mass anti-government rallies.

EFE Verifica has denied dozens of Cuba-related publications that, in many cases, took photos outside of the context of other demonstrations in past years or in various locations.

A photo of a corpse falsely identified as Jovenel Moise, the president of Haiti, who was shot dead in the early hours of July 7 at his residence in Port-au-Prince, was also published.

It’s a photo taken in 2020 corresponding to another crime.

In addition to political disinformation, EFE Verifica also found lies that drew attention for their extravagant originality. For example, the person who said that anticoid-19 vaccines turn immunized people into werewolves that devour humans in Bolivia.

Neither scientists nor global health authorities have found genetic changes as a result of the COVID-19 vaccination.

Ares Biskas