The Erosion of Trust: How Disinformation and Platformization Are Reshaping Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean
In the final days before a pivotal election, a message appears in a family WhatsApp group, claiming that marked ballots have been discovered and citing anonymous “inside sources.” An image resembling an official electoral record is attached, yet there is no named author, no recognizable media outlet, and no verifiable source. Despite this, the message proliferates, igniting outrage and spreading faster than any official refutation from electoral authorities. This scene, repeated across the region, illustrates a profound new challenge: Latin America and the Caribbean have never enjoyed greater opportunities for access to information and public expression, yet they have also never found it so difficult to construct a public conversation grounded in verifiable facts. The digital age has brought unprecedented connectivity, but it has simultaneously dismantled the traditional gatekeepers of information, creating an environment where suspicion, fragmentation, and doubt flourish at the expense of a shared reality.
This transformation is not merely about becoming digital; the public sphere itself has been fundamentally “platformized.” The ascendancy of digital platforms and artificial intelligence has expanded access to knowledge, but it has also restructured the very mechanics of public discourse—altering who speaks, how content circulates, and which messages gain traction. An increasingly large portion of public debate now unfolds within private, algorithm-driven platforms whose business models prioritize user engagement and attention over the public interest. As a result, the public sphere has become more fragmented, personalized, and automated. This architectural change carries profound implications for democracy, as highlighted in the 2026 UNDP Report on Democracy and Development. Democracy fundamentally requires a baseline of shared conditions for citizens to form independent judgments, compare distinct perspectives, and accept collective decisions, even when those decisions conflict with their personal preferences. When these foundational conditions are undermined, a society’s capacity for deliberation and the building of civic trust are severely weakened, threatening the very legitimacy of democratic governance.
Although this is a global issue, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and the spread of disinformation are colliding with long-standing regional vulnerabilities: persistently low institutional trust, high political polarization, deep inequalities, and a fragile information ecosystem. While technology does not create these problems, it acts as a powerful amplifier, magnifying existing fissures within society. The traditional model of the information ecosystem, for decades, was anchored by recognizable media outlets and identifiable journalists. This model was far from perfect, plagued by media concentration, editorial biases, and the undue influence of political and economic powers. Nevertheless, it provided relatively stable and recognizable mechanisms for verifying information and holding power to account. Today, that model has lost its central authority and faces a steep decline in public confidence. According to Latinobarómetro, trust in the print press has plummeted from 45% in 2006 to 38% in 2024, television trust fell from 63% to 41%, and radio trust dropped from 69% to 44%, underscoring a broad and systemic loss of faith in traditional news sources.
Disinformation is a primary driver of this erosion, as it blurs the lines between factual reporting and manipulated content. While disinformation itself is not novel, its speed, scale, and the low cost of production and dissemination have changed dramatically. A false narrative can now persist in public consciousness even after being fact-checked and debunked, particularly when it resonates with established political identities or reinforces pre-existing suspicions and grievances. This phenomenon is felt acutely across the region, with 76% of the population believing that false information circulates on social media. This perception is particularly high in Uruguay (87%), Chile (84%), and Brazil, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic (83%). This creates a profound paradox: although an overwhelming majority of citizens say they distrust social media, more than 60% rely on it as their primary source of news. Public discourse is increasingly built on information sourced from spaces that are, themselves, not trusted—an environment ripe for the rapid propagation of rumor and the dissolution of any shared evidentiary basis.
The consequences of this shift extend far beyond the information ecosystem itself, directly impacting the fundamental resource of any democracy: trust. As a common baseline of facts disappears and public conversation fragments into divergent, personalized realities, trust in information, institutions, and the legitimacy of collective decisions—all part of a single interconnected ecosystem—begins to deteriorate. When one pillar erodes, the others become increasingly fragile. This fragility becomes starkly visible during elections. Disinformation does not need to change a single vote to inflict harm on a democracy; it simply needs to cast doubt on the integrity of the process itself. The mere suspicion of manipulation can be just as damaging as actual interference, because it corrodes the public’s acceptance of the shared rules and institutions that underpin democratic life. In this climate, unverified claims about electoral fraud can undermine citizens’ faith in the legitimacy of results, even before they are officially announced.
Ultimately, safeguarding the conditions for public debate is about protecting democracies’ ability to process their own internal disagreements. Democracy does not depend on the absence of conflict; rather, it depends on the existence of a shared arena where that conflict can be deliberated and resolved peacefully. Protecting that space cannot be the responsibility of a single actor; it requires a systemic, ecosystem-wide approach. The path forward demands strengthening independent journalism that is capable of verification, contextualization, and investigative reporting; demanding more transparency and accountability from digital platforms; fostering citizens’ media and digital literacy so they can navigate a complex information landscape; and building institutions capable of re-establishing public trust. The challenge for the region is not to control public conversation, but to ensure it remains free, pluralistic, and informed, providing the democratic space for societies to debate their differences without losing the common ground needed to move forward together.
