i PART I GENERAL OVERVIEW 1. INTRODUCTION Disinformation has become a global concern. In the second half of the 2010s, this phenomenon entered public debate because of its impact on political processes, especially elections. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the spread of fake news has gained even more attention due to the potential impact on people’s lives of the discrediting of preventive measures and treatments, especially the vaccine against the new coronavirus. Fake news has also been on the rise in Latin America and the Caribbean, although the phenomenon is far from new. The region is marked by a close association between media outlets and politics, not only in electoral disputes but also in discussions of various national issues, such as support for dictatorial regimes in the second half of the twentieth century.1 Disinformation is a historical phenomenon that has been propagated by politicians, public authorities, and the traditional media over decades. Unfortunately, these practices have also been consolidated as a political strategy among groups supporting certain candidates or parties. Another characteristic of the region is strong levels of concentration in various media sectors. The media systems were developed by a limited number of economic actors in the telecommunications field, such as cable TV and internet service providers, as well as in radio, TV, and printed media. As researchers and freedom of expression reports point out, this concentration impacts on public debate, hindering the development of a plural and democratic public sphere that could allow for discussions with a diversity of views on issues. It also prevents this public sphere from I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH being able to question disinformation when it is disseminated by traditional vehicles (Mastrini and Becerra 2017). The growth of the internet has not only brought new agents to the communication ecosystem; it has also led to new forms of concentration within digital platforms. Google and Facebook, whose services and applications are very popular in Latin American and Caribbean countries, reflect this concentration. These agents are the new gatekeepers of public debate (Observacom 2018), conditioning information flows and access to and the reach of cultural and political debates. The emergence of digital platforms has also impacted how disinformation is produced and disseminated. In the past, disinformation was more strongly associated with authorities and traditional vehicles. In Latin America, it was used as a political strategy, especially during the reigns of the dictatorial regimes in the second half of the twentieth century (Llorens, Maronna, and Dúran 2021). More recently, authorities and media outlets have spread misleading content to support the anti-grassroots political agendas of the continent’s neoliberal governments. And with the advancing popularity of social media, politicians have gained new channels for distributing misleading content, channels which have also been used by supporters and collectives of the most diverse shades. At the same time, digital platforms have created an environment that allows for the amplification of false discourses. Their business models, which are based on the large-scale collection of data, the construction of profiles, and personalized services Latin America and the Caribbean – 79