ways to address it. When intentionality is taken into account, the focus turns to combating the largescale production of false content, although it is still important to frame solutions (such as fact checking and media education, which will be explored later) for those who consume false information. Another feature of the concept involves the promotion of harm. However, the object of harm varies: it can be unspecified (as in the concept used by APC) or society as well as individuals. The collective nature of the harm caused (to electoral processes, to democracy, or to society) implies that it is necessary to understand how responses must contribute to making public debate more informed. Agência Lupa’s definition of disinformation—as confined to content that is not consistent with the truth—opens up quite a large scope, and might include satire or journalistic error. AFP’s definition, on the other hand, which includes manipulated but not necessarily false content, also has a broad scope. This kind of definition comes closer to a broader approach to harmful content, but can make it more difficult to differentiate what is and what is not disinformation. Both among the actors and in the academic literature (which will be discussed in Part II of this report), it is possible to perceive the influence of the concept of information disorder (as in the case of FGV in Brazil), widely propagated by the Global North through the work of the First Draft Coalition. João Guilherme dos Santos (interview, August 2021) from the Brazilian research center INCT.DD calls attention to the inadequacy in Portuguese (and the same applies to Spanish) of the differentiation between disinformation and misinformation as adopted in English. In their responses to our survey, the APC referred to the report “Disinformation and Freedom of Opinion and Expression” by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan (2021), and characterized the practice of disinformation “as false information that is deliberately created to harm.” It is therefore “organized, well resourced, and reinforced by amplification techniques, including automated technology.” Following a trend in the international debate, the APC distinguishes disinformation from misinformation, with the former being marked by the intention to deceive and the latter by the absence of such intention. The use of information that is not necessarily false but is used with the intention to confuse or manipulate would constitute “malinformation.” I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH Santos (interview, August 2021) of INCT.DD problematizes the importation of these terms into the Portuguese language: “Desinformaçao, in Portuguese, has to do with an uninformed person, but in English it is information passed on to confuse and deceive.” Hence, the use of the term desinformaçao (“disinformation”) in Portuguese can generate confusion, he warns. He stresses that it is necessary to build common understandings among the actors involved: “If there is no conceptual alignment, people end up producing distinct and incompatible things.” According to Observacom (interview, Goméz, 2021), disinformation can be defined as deliberate strategies of using false information and knowledge to cause harm to people, institutions, elections or democracy itself. It also includes the element of intentionality and the use of false content consciously, as well as the provocation of damage, which can range from an individual aspect to something applicable to society as a whole. In his answers to our survey, Gilberto Junior from Agência Lupa, a Brazilian data verification agency, classifies the phenomenon as “the use of communication and information techniques to mislead or give a false image of reality, by suppressing or hiding information, minimizing its importance or changing its meaning.” In this case, aspects other than falsehood are included, such as the modification of meaning or the minimization of importance. In her responses to our survey, Elodie Martínez from AFP Factual described this practice as something that contains elements of falsehood but also encompasses different forms of manipulation as well: “Disinformation is content that resembles news or information, which seems plausible, but contains false data or elements, taken out of context, manipulated, invented.” Tatiana Dourado from FGV responded to our survey questions by stating that they approach the concept of information disorder from the perspective of digital technologies: “We consider online disinformation as the result of the disordered flow of harmful content, which is propagated through the use of computational propaganda techniques and through the mobilizing force of segmented audiences and cohesive online networks.” Adrián Pino (interview, August 2021), from the Argentinian project Desconfio, highlighted the criticism levelled at the term “fake news.” Latin America and the Caribbean – 1 1 2