AFP FACTUAL AFP Factual is an international project of Agence France-Presse, organized by world regions (Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa) and by themes (health, environment, science, politics, and sports). The website is also organized by country, and here it publishes the checks carried out by the agency’s team in a particular nation, such as Argentina.24 For the 2019 elections, associations of communication professionals, political parties, internet platforms, and the National Electoral Chamber signed the “Compromiso Ético Digital” (Digital ethics commitment), an agreement to combat disinformation and disseminate truthful information as a way to strengthen the democratic process (Cámara Nacional Electoral 2019). PUBLIC INITIATIVES CONFIAR In 2020, the Argentinian government launched the Confiar25 platform. The initiative aims to inform citizens about actions of the federal executive branch of the government, especially in the context of the pandemic. It also makes available official data, checks fake news, and publishes notices of messages circulating with misleading information related to the government and official data. The project has been made available through the public news agency Télam, and also works as a datachecking platform. NÓDIO OBSERVATORY In 2020, the Nódio Observatory (Observatory for Disinformation and Symbolic Violence in the Media and on Digital Platforms) was created, linked to the Office of the Public Defender in Argentina. According to the agency, the objective is to identify, verify, and dismantle disinformation. The initiative has received criticism from civil society and media organizations, but the Defender’s Office argued that there was no intention of restricting freedom of expression. According to Adrián Pino (interview, August 2021) from Desconfio, concerns about the initiative arose “in part because [civil society and media organizations] understood that the government itself, often due to the dynamics of I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH official communication, could not independently monitor journalism. It was inverting the equation: journalism should be in a position of control, but it was put in a position of being controlled.” LEGAL INITIATIVES In 2019, a bill was presented in the House of Representatives to modify the Electoral Code (Law No. 19945) to prohibit the extensive publication of news that contains misleading claims or that would affect the integrity of a candidate or party. A party that commits this offense could lose the right to public funding for one to four years and the individual could be fined. In 2020, another bill was presented to the Senate, Bill No. 848, which regulates the dissemination of “illegal content” on social networks, such as fake news, hate speech, false accusation of crime that results in a lawsuit, and the promotion of panic or incorrect conduct during a pandemic or infectious epidemic. The project imposes obligations on platforms with more than 1 million users, such as creating channels to receive complaints and blocking or eliminating illegal content. In the case of fake news, the indicated procedure is to mark the publication as disinformation. Bill No. 1453 of 2020 prescribes penalties for the dissemination of false news within the digital spectrum for the purposes of promoting panic, undermining the credibility of official authorities, or fomenting disorder or riots. However, CELE’s Matías González (interview, August 2021) argues that the solution to the problem is more complex than criminal law: We see potential negative effects of criminalizing expression. In this sense, we start from this basis. The particular project that has been presented has vague definitions; it does not comply with the principle of legality of the Inter-American system. The Salta State Bill talks about disseminating and propagating totally or partially false news. We don’t know what is partially false, what is “disseminate” and “propagate.” The bill did not prosper; there was no debate about these projects. We saw them as a reaction to demands from society to solve the problem. Latin America and the Caribbean – 95