Anti-Latinx Computational Propaganda in the United States

Given that the Latino community is the second largest ethnic group in the US, an understanding of how Latinos are discussed and targeted on social media during US elections is crucial. This paper explores these questions through a data analysis on Reddit, one of the most prominent and popular social media platforms for political discussion. We collected Reddit posts mentioning Latinos and the US midterm elections from September 24, 2017 to September 24, 2018. We analyzed people's posting patterns over time, and the digital traces of the individuals posting the majority of content and the most popular content. Our research highlights data voids that existed in online discussions surrounding Latinos prior to the US midterm elections. We observe a lack of neutral actors engaging Latinos in political topics. It appears that it is the more extremist voices (i.e. individuals operating within subreddits who identify themselves as political trolls) who are creating the most political content about Latinos. We conclude our report with a discussion of the possible dangers of data voids (especially with regard to their ties to mis- and disinformation) and recommendations to increase the involvement of the Latino community in future US elections.