Column by our lead researcher Chiara Sáezoriginally published in Circuito, an information and analysis initiative on the intersection between democracy and social media in Latin America.
An exit referendum for the Constitutional Process in Chile will be voted for the second time this Sunday, December 17th. The process seeks to replace the current Constitution after the text written by the Constitutional Convention was rejected in the 2022 referendum.
The possibility of a new Constitution was the majority vote in a 2020 referendum as a response to the crisis generated by the social outburst in 2019. From a current perspective, the Constitutional Convention was an anomaly regarding the country’s history: a gender-equal body with an overwhelming progressive and leftist majority, including parties with low parliamentary representation, political collectives and social movements.
From the beginning, the Convention was a target for disinformation copiously circulating on social media and messaging systems -occasionally amplified by traditional media-, as well as digital gender violence toward the women elected as representatives. Both phenomena have been documented by the national and international press, as well as surveys to conventionals and public opinion studies.
An example of this is that last September, the Electoral Service (Servel) sanctioned Google for failing to provide required information on the people or entities that hired electoral propaganda on its platform during the 2022 referendum and not disclosing the amounts involved in these agreements. The fine was approximately 6,600 dollars, a tiny amount considering the company’s profit level but which prompted a debate on the legal loopholes for counteracting the dissemination of disinformation in electoral contexts.
The constitutional process that culminates this Sunday has been very different. First, its management followed the logics of traditional politics much more. An Expert Commission approved by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate prepared a draft of the constitutional text, which was worked on by the Constitutional Council and a Technical Admissibility Committee to ensure that the institutional terms established in 2022 were not infringed. Unlike the previous process, this one had a right-wing majority, including far-right parties.
According to the President of the Electoral Service Andrés Tagle, less disinformation has circulated in this process than in the previous one. The agency Fastcheck agrees with this observation, which quantified 83.6% less disinformation than in the 2022 process. This data allows coming up with some hypotheses on the origin, direction and funding of the fake information, which academic research will have to finish determining. Paradoxically, all surveys predict the rejection of this new text as well.
In parallel to the institutional itinerary, Minister Secretary General of Government Camila Vallejo announced the the incorporation of Chile into the Mis-and-Disinformation Hub, a working group of the OECD on disinformation whose objectives include the exchange of best practices and effective measures against disinformation, understood as a threat to democracy.
As part of the implementation of these commitments, a temporary Advisory Commission Against Disinformation was created in May 2023Advisory Commission Against Disinformation, to advise the minister of science, technology, knowledge and innovation and the minister secretary general of government on matters related to the analysis of the global phenomenon of disinformation and its development in Chile.
The commission was composed of nine experts representing public, private and regional universities, as well as civil society and fact-checking organizations. Its responsibility was to address the impact of disinformation on the quality of democracy, digital literacy, its dynamics on digital platforms, international best practices and public policies.
Once its creation was announced, the mere idea of an advisory commission generated criticism, resistance and fear from some sectors regarding an alleged violation of freedom of the press. Even the Senate made a request to the Constitutional Court, which was rejected. There were also university academics seeking to close the debate before it was even open. This is evidence of the persisting difficulty in Chile in debating the challenges for freedom of expression in the current social, informational and technological context with high-mindedness. In turn, the commission received significant international support, for instance, from Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and Julio Bacio Terracino, head of the OECD Public Sector Integrity Division.
The commission presented two reports. The first, published in late August, was a general diagnosis on the phenomenon of disinformation in the world and in the Chilean context. The final report, released on December 4th, highlights the threat of disinformation on social media and proposes 72 recommendations, among them: strengthening cooperation with international governance bodies that are addressing the problem; guidelines for the State regarding electoral processes, cybersecurity and public health; various information, media and digital literacy measures; and measures to strengthen the media and research on disinformation.
In short, it is a 360-degree report with recommendations that touches on multiple aspects of this phenomenon. The document assumes that disinformation is not just a problem for democracy but also a big industry, and for this reason, it must be addressed at several levels with regulation, co-regulation and self-regulation strategies.
Upon reviewing the text, there is practically no mention of the creation of new laws, much less laws aimed at controlling the press as its worst doomsayers had predicted. It is rather diversified into various initiatives that can and should be promoted by the State. Additionally, the report assumes that part of the problem of disinformation has to do with the precariousness of journalistic work, but also with social media platforms that operate with little or no oversight. The position of traditional media regarding the report’s results has been to request greater powers for Servel. So far, the recommendations have had little criticism and controversy, which speaks well of the conducted work and the content of the proposals.
This final report must be seen as an action program for the issue, with a country perspective that should not end with the change of government but be understood as a public interest issue, i.e., as a common good for everyone, even against an immediate private interest, representing a benefit for society above individual satisfactions. In May 2024 , Chile will host the next global conference on freedom of the press organized by UNESCO. Let’s hope this action program against disinformation receives international recognition on this occasion and allows advancing the implementation of the recommendations proposed at a national, regional and global level.
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