Magistrate suggests review of effects of social networks in electoral processes

Alonso Urrutia

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, March 7, 2022, p. 8

The growing interference and sophistication in the use of social networks and digital platforms makes it necessary to review ways of regulating their incidence in electoral processes to avoid affectations in democratic systems, says Judge Luis Espíndola, of the Specialized Chamber of the Electoral Court of the Judicial Power of the Federation. Even, based on international experiences where they have been decisive in changing trends, a possible cause of nullity should be analyzed.

In interview with the daythe magistrate also reviews the challenges that the unprecedented experiences of popular consultation and revocation of mandate have represented, warning that, in light of the first experiences in both exercises, the review of the legal framework is required to perfect some aspects: lack of catalog of sanctions, the impossibility that the president whose mandate is to be revoked can allude to the issue or the incidence of social networks.

Member of the Specialized Chamber, responsible for resolving in the first instance complaints about the excesses of public servants in contravention of article 134 of the Constitution, the war dirtythe language of hate in the campaigns, Espíndola acknowledges that after more than 12 years, the legal vacuum still prevails because there is no secondary law that regulates 134, which has been done based on TEPJF criteria and that the absence of regulations In terms of digital platforms, it represents a challenge for the electoral system.

While it is true that both the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and the TEPJF have defined criteria to limit these spaces in social networks, it recognizes that it is an area that contains multiple challenges: the dissemination of false news, the indiscriminate use of bots, the dissemination of hate speech or gender violence and even abuse in the use of user information, as occurred in the case of Cambridge Analytica in the United States.

And although he highlights that companies like Twitter, Facebook or even Netflix have their own policies to regulate excesses, which speaks of good business practices, Espíndola questions whether it is really intended that private companies be the ones to have control over the use of networks. social. To what extent is its incidence going to be allowed to be governed by private regulation? It is necessary that the institutions regulate the incidence, she indicates.

“Let us remember that examples like the Brexit, or in 2016 the election of Trump with the active, proven participation of Cambridge Analytica with the profiling of some groups identified for their manipulation, which in some way had to do with the impact on the results. Or the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil or the no to peace in Colombia, are examples to which we must return and rethink in a cause of nullity of the election related to this type of action; it is important to focus this type of actions with a legal consequence. It is necessary to focus the debate or only regarding sanctions, the regulation of digital platforms.”

–Has the dynamism of these platforms become one of the main challenges of democracies?

–It is one of the main challenges of democratic systems. It is very important not to lose sight of it because digital communication strategies can have a very important involvement in modifying public perception, and in the manipulation of political or electoral reality, and it is manipulation through false, erroneous, biased information. to manipulate people.