00:02:11.040In April, she went missing from the Fort Hood military base in Texas.
00:02:16.000On July 5th, her remains were confirmed to have been found.
00:02:20.060Here's her sister talking to ABC News.
00:02:22.720She was taken away from me the most horrible way, yet they take it if it was a joke.0.99
00:02:28.840My sister's no choke. My sister's a human being just like me, her, all of us.
00:02:34.000Aaron David Robinson, another soldier, killed himself as police were trying to take him into custody for her murder.
00:02:41.140Before she died, Guillen told her mother that she was being sexually harassed.
00:02:46.020Fort Hood has one of the highest rates of murder, sexual assault, and harassment in the Army.
00:02:52.100Online, many other soldiers use what happened to her to come forward to share their own stories about sexual harassment in the military, using the call, I am Vanessa Guillen.
00:03:03.140Her family is demanding changes in how the military handles sexual harassment complaints, and protesters around the country amplified her family's demands for answers and change.
00:03:13.220Guillen's death is a terrible tragedy, and for as many people used her death to highlight important conversations
00:03:19.180about how our country's institutions fail the very people who fight for our country.
00:03:24.620Others used it to fuel hate and confusion online.
00:03:29.280Researchers and digital activists are seeing the way her tragic story
00:03:32.600is being used to fuel disinformation in Latinx online spaces.
00:03:36.940Because her killer was believed to be a Black man,
00:03:39.800big Facebook pages began promoting stories about Vanessa's death
00:03:42.800as a way to sow divisions between Latinx communities and Black Lives Matter advocates.
00:03:47.140unfortunately when it comes to how disinformation spreads online this isn't at all uncommon bad
00:03:54.780actors pick up on sensitive or emotionally charged topics involving wedge issues like race and use
00:04:00.180them to spread fear confusion and suspicion among each other they often exploit existing fractures
00:04:06.540between communities to pit marginalized groups against each other but because we don't actually
00:04:11.100spend a lot of time talking about marginalized communities in general let alone how our identities
00:04:15.720shape the online experience, we aren't talking about the big threat this tactic presents.
00:05:45.400and think about the level of disinformation
00:05:48.120that was spreading, targeting the Latino community.0.99
00:05:52.480Vanessa Cardenas is a longtime activist and policy expert.0.94
00:05:56.880She's seen the way that disinformation online
00:05:58.780plays on our community's fear to create confusion.
00:06:03.080But when she saw the way Guillen's story
00:06:05.040was being used online, she was shocked.
00:06:06.860So that was actually really shocking because obviously the Vanessa Guillen case has touched such a nerve in the community in the sense of, you know, this soldier that, you know, had dedicated her life for a country.
00:06:24.080So I guess I would say, you know, probably like two weeks, well, maybe like a little bit right after they identify the suspect of the case, you know, I would say days after it, I started seeing some of these pictures and memes about, pretty much about the suspected killer.
00:06:48.600And just driving this message of, you know, black and brown tensions and just amplifying the sort of the message.
00:06:58.580Oh, you know, where where's the Black Lives Matter movement when it comes to a Latina that has been killed by a black person?0.59
00:07:06.680so that was again really eye-opening but I also feel it was at least for me by then I was already
00:07:16.860just I've been aware more of sort of the disinformation that's been spreading so I was
00:07:21.680not surprised but again I think it just speaks to the level of this strategy that's out there
00:07:28.620about amplifying fear, distrust, and just creating wedges
00:07:34.000between these communities, which I think we're going to see more of.
00:07:38.400And these bad actors are really using every opportunity they can
00:07:42.340to actually, you know, create these wedges.
00:07:45.980Facebook groups with big followings and reach
00:14:21.740Facebook is a big part of how this all goes down.
00:14:24.760For instance, the pro-Trump Facebook group The Conservative Choice has over 100,000 followers.
00:14:30.380And many of their posts are dedicated to criticizing Black celebrities like Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, and calls for racial justice.
00:14:38.020One post even accuses Facebook, the company itself, of supporting racism
00:14:42.400by telling people to avoid Latino businesses
00:14:44.800because of an initiative highlighting Black-owned business.
00:14:48.700Similarly, online, protesters' calls for businesses to hire more Black people
00:14:53.380get twisted into them calling for businesses not to hire Latinos.
00:14:57.620Many of the other posts on the page are videos or images0.97
00:15:01.340depicting violent attacks on Latinos or Latino-owned businesses by Black people0.84
00:15:05.320to drive home the idea that the Latinx community0.99
00:15:07.860shouldn't trust or support the Black community.0.87
00:15:11.180Like a Kobo, Vanessa also sees the ways that anti-Blackness0.81
00:15:15.300and the erasure of Afro-Latinx identities
00:15:17.680have presented fractures and tensions in communities of color
00:15:46.680And I should say something also, Bridget, and that is that we know that there are black people in the Latino community.
00:15:53.500Like we have a rich history of Afro, of African descent in the community, whether it's the Caribbean or Peru.
00:16:00.700and I'm from Bolivia and even in Bolivia we are we have Bolivians who are of African descent
00:16:06.540so you know but I but the way this um um this current this information efforts you know what
00:16:13.180they're trying to do is just you know make us look like the other right like separate us so
00:16:18.300you do have sort of like I was saying this really graphic posts um just amplifying violence that is0.98
00:16:26.780that is in how they describe it or in how they post it, you know, by black men.0.93
00:16:32.120There's also a lot of content out there about painting the Black Lives Movement about, you know, that is violent.
00:16:39.640They have a lot of content that's showing, for example, that the Black Lives Movement protesters are destroying churches or burning Bibles.
00:16:49.040So really going at sort of, you know, some of the themes of, you know, Latino communities, it's very, you know, faith centered.
00:16:56.780And so they're trying to sort of, again, go at this pressure point and hit those nerves where the community, on things that the community cares about.
00:17:06.260We are, on the Vanessa Guillen case, there's been a lot of content out there amplifying that the alleged killer was black and promoting the All Lives Matter narrative and questioning how come the Black Lives Movement doesn't show up for Latinos when Latinos are being killed and so on and so forth.
00:17:25.220so that's the type of content we're seeing now and and again we know that every time there's a
00:17:32.420flashpoint or every time there's something that's happening just you know at a national level or
00:17:39.960even at the local level I mean there was a there were some posts I think it was I want to say in
00:17:46.600Luciana about just about the Black Lives Matter movement. I think that there was a demand that,
00:17:55.480you know, all businesses should hire people of color. But how the bots or the sort of the
00:18:02.940disinformation about actors were trying to frame it was that the Black Lives Movement were forcing
00:18:08.240Latino business owners to hire, you know, non-Latinos. So things like that, right? So
00:18:15.880they're trying to, again, press this really specific issues in the community where they
00:18:23.240know that it hits a nerve and just amplify those. And we know we're going to be getting
00:18:28.260more of those as things get just more heated, as we come closer to the election.
00:18:34.420All truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder.
00:18:41.480Bad actors online seize on conversations that require sensitivity or nuance to talk about,
00:18:47.220just like they had no problem seizing on Guillen's death to push harmful narratives online.
00:18:52.440After Goya's CEO faced backlash for praising Trump earlier this year,
00:18:56.560some accounts purporting to belong to Latino social media users
00:18:59.660used it to spread accusations of a mob of PC bullies attacking a hardworking community of color.
00:19:06.460But Win Black Palante, a group that trains voters to identify disinformation,
00:19:12.080found that some of the accounts pushing this narrative were actually bots.
00:19:16.960Online, the Goya controversy appeared to boil down to Black Lives Matter versus the Lutzen X community.
00:19:24.120Ashley Bryant works with Win Black Palante,
00:19:26.540and she says social media platforms aren't doing enough to curb the spread of this kind of disinformation.
00:19:31.420We just experienced a couple of weeks ago when the Goya CEO, you know, decided to share his support for Trump and that became a controversy in itself, but also unleashed a right wing operation around, you know, trying to really disparage the true message.
00:19:54.240You know, Julian Castro and AOC, you know, really stepped up and shared, you know, if you share the values of Trump, you are not supporting our community.
00:20:05.100And, you know, we saw a bot be unleashed on Facebook within, you know, a couple of hours.
00:20:13.240And it took a couple of days before Facebook was able to actually remove these, you know, fake comments, fake agents.
00:20:22.640And our operations saw it within a day, right? And so it's just, you know, there's hundreds of people in their organization that are allegedly focused on this, but yet we were able to identify that these were bots in just under a couple of hours.
00:20:37.460And so, you know, it really is disheartening to see that these companies aren't really ready to step up into this moment.
00:20:49.020Misinformation and disinformation is not a political issue.
00:20:53.620It is literally to suppress entire communities that need to exercise their right to vote.
00:20:59.440And if these tech companies don't see it that way, you really have to question what their purposes are.
00:21:04.720Vanessa also saw the way that conversations around Goya oversimplified the narrative online.
00:21:10.420But she says the narrative's pushing division, even when Trump himself picks up on it, probably won't resonate much with most folks in the Latinx community.
00:21:20.140I mean, I think they're trying really hard to sort of make the connection.
00:21:23.360Obviously, even the Trump administration picked up on it, getting Ivanka to post that ridiculous tweet with her holding a can of Goya beans.
00:21:34.660Again, I think they're just sort of trying to amplify these wedges and just really, in the case of Goya, you know, I think that the average Latino who's, you know, again, losing their jobs because of COVID and just trying to figure out how they're going to survive this pandemic.
00:21:51.160This is not something that resonates with them.
00:21:54.880But I do think, again, there's online, there's just this effort to say, you know, Democrats are against business owners.
00:22:02.000Democrats are trying to shut this down when we know that that's, you know, that that was not the case.
00:22:07.460I mean, people have the thing that people had issue with were the comments of the Goya president, who, again, is supporting Trump.
00:22:14.400And Trump, we know, is driving a very divisive and just really anti-Latino agenda.
00:22:20.740So that's the point. And I think part of this, again, this disinformation effort is just to confuse the truth, right? It's just to take attention from the real issues and just focus it on sort of these specific narratives that benefits them.
00:22:34.400And it goes along to sort of their overall frame that Democrats are socialists, that Democrats, you know, don't believe in God, that Democrats, you know, are just driving a socialist agenda and they don't want anyone to be successful.
00:22:49.920So, again, it just goes off the broader narratives that they're trying to push.
00:22:56.240Once an official Trump Facebook page, or even Trump himself,
00:23:00.280signal boosts these narratives, they can spread far and wide.
00:23:04.260Sometimes it's not even helpful to know where it's coming from
00:23:06.480because anything that's getting a lot of engagement,
00:29:46.420I've seen the way dangerous disinformation has impacted my own community.
00:29:51.400Communities of color have good reason to be skeptical1.00
00:29:53.860of our political and medical institutions.1.00
00:29:57.340Institutions that historically we can't always trust.
00:30:00.680But COVID has just made everything worse.
00:30:04.160I see memes spreading false information about COVID and the election, being shared by people that I love, and it just makes me feel so frustrated.
00:30:13.360Yeah, you talked earlier about the importance of inoculating your community against disinformation, and I really felt that.
00:30:21.640You know, my people are Black, we're from the South.
00:30:24.580When it comes to things like voting, it is not always as easy as just going to vote.
00:30:28.600You know, in these states, there are voter ID laws and other kinds of barriers to just going and casting your ballot.
00:30:37.260So I really see a lot of disinformation being spread around voting.
00:30:40.940And particularly now with COVID, I've seen a lot of elders in my own community posting things that I know are rooted in this very real fear around COVID.
00:30:54.740You know, COVID has ravaged black and brown communities.
00:30:57.000So these folks are like their concerns are very valid. It's been a frustrating challenge to acknowledge and validate these very real fears in my own community, while also not letting people that I care about give over to fear and spread harmful, incorrect information because they're fearful. It's been a challenge.1.00
00:31:22.960No, and I so connect with you on that point, and I can totally relate.
00:31:31.980Most of my family or, like, my aunts and uncles, they came here when they're adults.
00:31:36.640So they are just, you know, this is a, I think it's really important for us to realize that this is a very difficult moment.
00:31:43.180It is a very confusing moment, you know, and I think especially the older generation, they're just like, they just don't know what's happening, you know,
00:31:51.280and they're fearful for the future and they are, you know,
00:31:55.320they see what's happening, you know, in our country with Trump.
00:31:58.400They see COVID, they see their employment gains being erased.
00:32:02.240They see their incomes being erased and then our health, you know,
00:32:06.360we are the communities that are feeling the brunt of the impact of the
00:32:09.940pandemic. Now, on top of that, you add this whole, you know,
00:32:14.240the new process of vote by mail, right?
00:32:16.620It's a new process for a lot of folks.
00:32:18.300They're not familiar how to, you know, request a ballot. They have never voted by mail, many of them. And then the other piece of this is even for young people, like, oh, yeah, they don't carry around a book of stamps like some of us did, right?
00:32:33.400So when you think about it, you know, it really presents a lot of challenges. And that's why, you know, I think that, again, part of our challenge as progressives is, you know, how are we, what voter education efforts are we implementing, even in this era of COVID, when everything has to be done virtually.
00:32:52.800I think that's going to force us to innovate, but also to have those conversations that
00:32:58.780we've been putting off, because I do believe that the best way to inoculate people is to
00:36:25.400And so it really adds another level of authenticity because it's not just, you know, our campaign that's trying to come in and talk to folks.
00:36:33.280But we're working with these organizations that have created a sense of community with with their not just their online audiences, but, you know, the citizens within their regions.
00:36:43.540And we're able to really spread this message of like, look, this is how you identify.
00:36:48.420These people are trolls. They are bots.
00:36:50.440They are not trying to appeal to you in any way beyond trying to mislead you.
00:36:58.040And the only way to fight back is to register and vote.
00:37:01.500Loosely translated, the slang term Palante means to go forward.
00:37:07.000And Ashley's team at Win Black Palante are working to help communities of color go forward stronger in solidarity.
00:37:14.800You know, I can't help but notice that your organization has two names, Win Black and Palante.
00:37:20.440you know, we see these narratives being pushed by bad actors that the Latinx community and the
00:37:26.300Black community, we can't work together. We have to be living in fear of each other. We have to
00:37:30.740be suspicious of each other. Not only does this framework obviously erase the fact that there are
00:37:34.980plenty of Afro-Latinas out there, but it's also just not true. And I guess my question is, how do
00:37:41.360we get to a place where we can present the truth that our communities are stronger together?
00:37:46.320Absolutely. And I mean, you took half my answer in the last in your last sentence, because simply that's the truth.
00:37:54.200We are stronger together and they know that. And so they want to do anything to divide these two communities.
00:38:01.120And, you know, it's simply just disgusting, quite honestly.
00:38:04.200I mean, we most recently were seeing this misinformation around, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement did put out a letter that was that was kind of describing some of their demands.
00:38:16.880And we're seeing a lot of right wing operatives that are boiling it down, taking out a lot of the context within the letter and sharing that the Black Lives Matter movement are against immigrants or they are, you know, doing mafia tactics, if you will, which is simply just not the truth.
00:38:38.020And they're spreading these untruths in a very broad manner.
00:38:42.340And so, you know, it's really important for us.
00:38:45.100And I'm glad that you underscored the Palante because we do have a Latinx focus.
00:38:50.500And because we want to bring our two communities together in this fight, there's so many critical
00:38:59.400But also, neither of these communities are monolithic.
00:39:02.420And it's really almost embarrassing to see that a lot of these operatives think of our communities as such. And so they're doing these tactics to really, you know, it's almost like this distributed racism to really pit these two communities against each other.
00:39:21.740And so we're really building a sense of let's educate Black voters, Latinx voters.
00:39:29.500Let's educate folks on what are the issues that really matter to us?
00:39:33.420Who are the leaders in this space that are supporting our issues, are supporting our values?
00:39:38.800And then also recognizing that, again, we're not monolithic.
00:39:42.540We need to speak to voters as individuals.
00:39:45.000And we're not just pitting everyone against each other.
00:39:49.280We're working under an administration right now that is trying to divide this country at every turn.
00:39:56.220And so it's really important that as we are mobilizing and reaching voters, that at every step of the way, we are trying to unite folks under one goal,
00:40:05.540which is to make sure that we have a democracy that represents our communities, that represents our issues, and that is going to fight to actually move our communities forward.