DDIA’s Latinos, Media, and Democracy Program (LMDP) 2026 - The AI Edition is an 8-week capacity-building program designed to support Latino journalists, content creators, media professionals, and civil society leaders with the tools and knowledge they need to understand information ecosystem trends, responsibly use AI, and strengthen engagement with Latino communities in the United States.

The Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA), in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), is proud to announce the 20 participants selected for the 2026 Spring cohort of the Latinos, Media, and Democracy Program (LMDP) - The AI Edition. The first of two cohorts DDIA will host this year brings together a multilingual group of journalists, content creators, and civil society leaders committed to strengthening a healthier information ecosystem for Latino communities across the United States and Latin America.

This page highlights the latest narratives circulating in Latino public WhatsApp and Telegram groups. Updated every week, it offers insights from DDIA’s ongoing monitoring of digital conversations shaping public opinion across messaging platforms.

DDIA’s REDESCover newsletter features emerging narratives and updates about information disorder spreading in Latino spaces online in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

DDIA monitored reactions following the release of the Epstein Files. The document dump exposed how quickly confusion turns into speculation, how easily gaps in information are reframed as proof of hidden truths, and how ready many are to believe narratives that confirm what they already suspect about power, secrecy, and corruption.

DDIA research consistently shows that our identities, values, and prior beliefs are among the strongest predictors of how we engage with narratives online. We monitored reactions around the Bad Bunny Halftime Show at the Superbowl. The halftime show didn’t tell us what to think. But it exposed how quickly we fill in the gaps, how easily interpretation turns into misinformation, and how ready we are to believe narratives that confirm who we think we are, and who we think “they” are.

Chapter 3 of WhatsApp Weaponized reveals how scammers target U.S. Latinos with crypto and investment scams across Spanish-language public WhatsApp groups. This report highlights how fraudulent trading bots, pyramid schemes, deceptive loans, and online gambling exploit financial aspirations, and outlines key red flags and recommendations to counter investment fraud targeting Latino communities in the United States.

Between January 3 and January 6, the U.S. intervention in Caracas triggered a digital firestorm of at least 80,000 posts with 806 million interactions on open social media platforms in the United States and Venezuela. How were the narrative-setters in English and Spanish?