Solution for a voter market analysis; Contracts with Soluciones Digitales, OW Marketing Agency, OBS for unknown amounts. Government and Private Responses Various public and private projects have been undertaken to stem the spread of online disinformation in Costa Rica. These include initiatives by the TSE to protect the integrity of the electoral process, as well as fact-checking projects by the government, the UCR, the digital daily CrHoy.com, and La Nación. Each is briefly described below. TSE initiatives The TSE has opted to fight disinformation campaigns through education and communication (rather than pursuing a punitive approach). Its strategy rests on three main pillars: a) enhanced digital literacy; b) improved communication; and c) prompt reaction to disinformation campaigns.34 The digital literacy program is run by TSE’s Institute of the Formation and Study of Democracy (IFED).35 Since 2019 the program has involved collaboration with Facebook and Twitter. The program started as a pilot project ahead of the 2020 municipal elections to evaluate and improve responses to disinformation before the 2022 general elections. Facebook facilitated the content of workshops in digital literacy and trained TSE officials as instructors. Given the TSE’s concern about the spread of false news and to further strengthen the module developed by Facebook, TSE collaborated with the UCR’s fact checking initiative “Double Check” (see below) who provided an additional training session on detecting fake news in Costa Rica to TSE officials. A diverse population of 750-760 people received training in digital literacy across the country as a result.36 Some workshops were conducted with a target audience, including local politicians, municipal leaders, and political youth leaders. Others were open to the public. In a similar agreement, Twitter gave three different seminars to community managers, political parties, and the media on how to identify disinformation and propaganda. The second pillar of the TSE’s strategy has consisted in improving communication by sharing interviews and videos debunking common electoral myths, and explaining electoral processes to journalists, especially municipal elections. The program involved working with directors of major news outlets and opinion formers. According to one interviewee: “The goal was to prevent false news from going viral. Developing a relationship and open communication channel with the media was important to ensure that when dubious material is discovered, they doubt it, ask critical questions, and call the TSE to verify before contributing to false news going viral. This way the TSE wanted to save itself a lot of problems.”37 The third pillar of the TSE’s response to disinformation campaigns has involved the implementation of prompt reactions by including in its agreement an open channel with Facebook that contained provisions to take down content which could threaten the integrity of the 2020 municipal electoral process. To achieve this, the electoral judges would be compelled at a first stage to issue a resolution providing evidence to justify their decision. Once justified, 94