Luján, Padilla Host Panel on Digital Election Disinformation in Non-English Languages

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), both members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), held a panel with civil society leaders, moderated by Maria Curi of Axios, on digital election disinformation in non-English languages. The Senators and panelists discussed the impacts of election falsehoods in non-English languages, the risks this poses to the integrity of the 2024 election, and the steps needed to mitigate these threats to our Democracy. The expert panel included Jessica González, CEO of Free Press, 

Mekela Panditharatne, Senior Counsel of Elections and Government at The Brennan Center for Justice, and Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Director from the Center for Technology Innovation at The Brookings Institution.

Last year, Senators Luján and Padilla joined their colleagues to introduce the Language-Inclusive Support and Transparency for Online Services (LISTOS) Act to improve multilingual large language models, automated decision-making systems, and content moderation practices online to better protect non-English speaking communities.

“Election disinformation is one of the biggest threats to our free and fair elections and must be fully addressed by social media platforms, lawmakers, and the voters themselves,” said Senator Luján. “A lie can travel the world before the truth can get it’s boots on. Today’s panel on digital election disinformation in all languages, particularly Spanish, highlighted pervasive risks to our elections. The testimony and expertise of today’s panelists underlined the urgent call to ensure the integrity of our democracy in November and all future elections.”