In a context in which disinformative narratives and information manipulation spread rapidly through social media and digital platforms, Spanish—a language shared by more than 580 million people—plays an important role as a channel for the circulation of this content, but also as a tool to combat it. This series aims to explore the challenges facing Spanish and how it can become a language of trust, capable of articulating critical and collaborative responses to disinformation.
To this end, Fundación Maldita.es, together with the Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB), has collaborated in curating a full day on disinformation on Friday, June 13, at the Pabellón Iberoamericano de la Feria (located at Puerta Doce de Octubre, Av. de Menéndez Pelayo, Retiro), featuring two panel discussions that connect journalism, technology, politics, and Ibero-American civil society.
The first session, “Disinformation in Spanish: causes, consequences, and responses” (11:00 a.m.), will bring together specialists in fact-checking, journalism, and strategic studies to analyze the structural origins of the phenomenon, its effects on democratic societies, and the responses already being developed from different regions. Participants include Sergio Hernández (EFE Verifica), Carmen Quintela (Agencia Ocote, Guatemala / LatamChequea), and Ángel Badillo (Elcano Royal Institute). The debate will be moderated by Clara Jiménez Cruz, co-founder of Fundación Maldita.es and the Factchequeado project (USA), and Lula Gómez Benito, Director of Communications at SEGIB.
Then, at 12:00 p.m., the focus will shift to the role of Spanish in the most advanced digital environments, with the panel “LLM Grooming: how AI is being manipulated in Spanish.” This discussion will address the risks of manipulating artificial intelligence language models—such as ChatGPT or Gemini—through biased content in Spanish. Speakers will include Luis Vásquez, researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC); Pablo Gamallo Otero, professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela and researcher at the Singular Research Center on Intelligent Technologies; and María Grandury, founder of the SomosNLP community. The session will be moderated by David Fernández, Chief Technology Officer at Fundación Maldita.es, together with Félix García Lausín, Head of the Ibero-American Knowledge Space at SEGIB.
