The killing of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is a blow to Ecuador’s democracy and underscores a violence crisis in the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

On August 9, 2023, an assailant shot and killed Villavicencio as he was leaving a campaign event in Quito, the country’s capital, in advance of the August 20 presidential election. Villavicencio, a journalist and former legislator, had a long record of exposing corruption, human rights violations, and abuses by organized crime. The Attorney General’s Office reported that one suspect was injured during confrontations with the police and died shortly afterward. Six more people were arrested. Villavicencio had reported receiving threats from the Los Choneros, a gang that he associated with the Mexican drug trafficking organization Sinaloa cartel.

“The killing of Fernando Villavicencio is a wake-up call for Ecuador’s democracy,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The rise of organized crime is putting the lives of Ecuadorians and their institutions at risk. Urgent, rights-respecting security policies are needed to protect them effectively.”

Between 2021 and 2022, Ecuador’s homicide rate rose from 13.7 to over 25 per 100,000, the highest rate in Ecuador’s history, and significantly higher than the global average of 6 per 100,000. The rate is expected to increase even further this year.

Two large gangs – the Choneros and the Lobos – liaise with Colombian, Mexican, and Albanian drug traffickers. Gangs are fighting for territorial control and have increased their acts of violence.

The authorities and media outlets have reported incidents in which people have been decapitated and dismembered, attacks with explosives, and killings of judges, prosecutors, journalists, and other political candidates. On July 23, armed men killed Agustín Intriago, the mayor of the western city of Manta.

Two out of three Ecuadorians feel they are not safe walking alone at night, a 2022 safety survey by Gallup, a global analytics firm, found – the worst result of any Latin American country surveyed. The National Police reported receiving about 5,000 reports of extortion between January and December 2022, the largest figure in recent history. Reports of extortion have almost doubled so far in 2023. Victims included small business owners, transportation and health workers, and others.

Gangs also control several prisons, Human Rights Watch found, and have in recent years killed over 600 people in a string of prison massacres.

In response to the wave of violence, President Guillermo Lasso has declared a range of localized states of emergencies, suspending constitutional rights. The government has also deployed the military and conducted prison raids. After the killing of Villavicencio, Lasso expanded the state of emergency across the entire country.

The government should put in place rights-respecting security and justice policies and tackle the root causes of criminality, including high levels of poverty and social exclusion, Human Rights Watch said. It should push for strategic criminal prosecutions focused on violent abuses, particularly those committed by senior gang members or chronic abusers, and on severing their networks of finance, political support, and weapons supply.

The authorities should seek to permanently reduce the power of organized crime groups, including by considering alternative approaches to drug policy that would reduce the profitability of the illegal drug trade.

“The ongoing states of emergency have not made Ecuadorians safer,” Goebertus said. “The government needs to put in place an effective and legitimate security policy that protects them and seeks to dismantle organized crime groups.”

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Public-interest reporting under threat ahead of critical 2023 elections.

Political paralysis and spiking crime pose grave threats to press freedom in Ecuador, finds a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published today.

CPJ’s report, “Ecuador on edge,” found the country’s journalists face the prospect of acute violence amid a security crisis with no precedent in recent history. In 2022, Ecuadorian press freedom group Fundamedios documented 356 attacks on the press, the highest number since 2018. In the first four months of 2023, the organization reported a total of 96 attacks.

In recent months in Ecuador, two journalists were forced to flee due to death threats, explosive devices were mailed to multiple broadcasters, and reporters are compelled to be accompanied by law enforcement in order to cover violent areas.

The fear of physical retribution has led Ecuadorian journalists to self-censor, producing a chilling effect on vital public-interest reporting. As a consequence, local communities across Ecuador are without access to reporting affecting their daily lives, notably in the lead-up to the general elections scheduled for August 20, 2023.

“Ecuador’s public safety crisis has triggered a serious deterioration in the conditions for local press, underscoring the urgent need for investment in mechanisms that strengthen press freedom and fortify journalist safety,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Ahead of Ecuador’s upcoming elections, it is essential to the integrity of the country’s democracy that local journalists can report the news without fear of reprisal to ensure Ecuadorians are informed and have access to reporting that holds power to account.”

The legacy of former President Rafael Correa’s anti-press sentiment continues to inflict lasting damage on press freedom in Ecuador, which saw retaliatory defamation lawsuits and restrictive measures against the media become commonplace.

President Guillermo Lasso, who took office in 2021, has taken steps to protect the press, yet political turbulence has thwarted the administration’s progress towards comprehensive media reform.

The report includes CPJ’s recommendations to Ecuador’s executive branch and judicial, administrative, and law enforcement authorities, as well as the international community, to implement actions to strengthen Ecuador’s press freedom commitments.

These include calls to guarantee financial resources for the effective functioning of the existing mechanism to protect journalists and a commitment from the Lasso government that Ecuadorian journalists and media outlets can report the news without fear of reprisal, particularly in the weeks ahead of the elections.

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Authoritarian regimes have long had a complicated relationship with media and communications technologies. The Unfreedom Monitor is a Global Voices Advox research initiative examining the growing phenomenon of networked or digital authoritarianism. This is an extract from the report on Ecuador, from the series of reports to come out of the research under the Unfreedom Monitor. Read the full report here. This report was translated from Spanish. You can see the original here.

The report’s three research topics, seen through the lens of digital authoritarianism, reveal practices that could affect democratic life in Ecuador. Although there was harassment and persecution during Correa’s decade (2007–2017), narrowing the data to Correa’s specific political ideology may hamper the understanding and analysis of the Ecuadorian context. In other words, viewing Ecuador in terms of a political binarism between authoritarianism and democracy will possibly prevent us, in post-Correa times, from observing anti-democratic and regressive practices still at play in the country. This is what is happening to press freedom and freedom of expression.

Under the government of Rafael Correa, punitive measures were used systematically against the privately-owned press, and there were even emblematic prosecution cases that were later dealt with by international courts such as the El Universo case. However, Fundamedios and Fundación Periodistas Sin Cadenas continue to report that, even with Correa out of power, the Ecuadorian State continues to be journalists’ main aggressor. Therefore, it is vital to keep asking questions and not let the debate die with Correa out of power.

Correa’s Communication Law, which went through profound modifications, showcases Ecuador’s political black-or-white thinking. The law was indeed used against journalists and the media, but when it was dismantled, it led to a problematic dichotomy between having more state or more self-regulated media. The latter eventually gained ground in the first year of Guillermo Lasso’s government. Also, other issues such as affirmative measures for community-led media, the role of public media, the distribution of frequencies of the radio electric spectrum, the broadcasting of intercultural content, all of which are needed to address communications as a whole, have been overshadowed. These aspects need to be discussed in the public eye in times of freedom and democracy (what Ecuador is at the moment, according to some politicians), all the while adopting a different approach from the praxis and discourse of the Correa government.

In addition, Correa’s administration and supporters heavily exploited social media and websites to position pro-government content, especially since these platforms have become more and more important in the last 15 years, which correspond to our period of study. But these tactics became more agile and prominent, becoming fully fledged systematic inauthentic campaigns, especially during campaign periods in 2017 and 2021.

These campaigns were particularly observable during Moreno’s government. It became evident that post-Correa governments picked up on the use of troll accounts, dubious social media campaigns, and other manipulative tactics. These strategies, which often include disinformation, obscure public debates. As a result, Ecuadorian media have partnered to promote factchecked content and some journalists have specialised in identifying the modus operandi of internet campaigns.

Additionally, Moreno’s government has resorted to old Correista practices by going after media outlets for allegedly disseminating copyrighted content. In this case, Moreno’s government did not need a company like Ares Rights, which operated in the name of high officials under Correa (although they deny it): Moreno’s people handled it themselves.

Organisations such as Freedom House have raised serious concerns about these moves as they affect press freedom and freedom of expression. Freedom House also warned about the use of mass surveillance technologies that can violate people’s rights by indiscriminately collecting personal data. This concern becomes even more serious as Ecuador does not have clear and precise regulations on the use and purchase of such devices. Moreno used invasive technology during the pandemic, and, according to Access Now, there were at least two internet blackouts during the October 2019 demonstrations. Access Now writes that internet blackouts happen when governments intentionally disrupt the internet, and included Ecuador, for the first time, in the world list of internet shutdowns.

In times of crisis, governments can use technology without stating their intentions and also tend to make generalist speeches that leave the door open to questionable behaviour. During Correa’s administration, the then-National Intelligence Service, Senain, would use video surveillance or malware to spy on journalists, opposition politicians, and social organisations. However, this behaviour did not affect the government’s popularity and it did not open serious and urgent investigations, even though international organisations talked about it.

Today, political espionage may be happening through video surveillance cameras, now installed nationwide and administered by the ECU 911 system. In 2019, the New York Times revealed that the cameras’ coverage was connected to the Strategic Intelligence Center. This happened during Correa’s time and continued under Moreno’s administration. However, President Moreno said that such intelligence operations against citizens or politicians were no longer carried out under his government and criticised his former president, Rafael Correa.

Access Now conducted research on the use and purchase of these surveillance technologies in Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil. For the Ecuadorian case, the researchers revealed that the discourse regarding video surveillance with facial recognition is ambiguous. Officials of the Ecuadorian emergency response system (ECU911) “denied having cameras with facial recognition capabilities, but multiple official announcements indicate otherwise,” Access Now researchers wrote in a 2021 report. Also, there is not enough regulation about the purchase and use of this equipment. The Ecuadorian State generally buys it from Axis (Sweden), Hikvision (China) and Verint (Israel and USA).

In short, Ecuador features practices that fall within the scope of digital authoritarianism. They are not exclusive to governments with specific ideological characteristics.

In the last 15 years, Correism has been a political movement that has generated mixed opinions and led to Ecuador’s most emblematic cases of surveillance, repression and manipulation. However, the lack of public debate and the prevailing narrative about the recovery of freedoms and democracy may create the illusion that Ecuador’s problems have been solved.

Read the full report here.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the Ecuadorian government’s commitment to fund and implement mechanisms that will advance press freedom and improve journalist safety in the country, following a meeting with representatives from CPJ and the local press freedom organization Fundamedios on Tuesday, April 18.

The government’s secretary of the administration, Sebastián Corral, agreed during the meeting to deliver critical funds to the existing mechanism to protect journalists, as well as additional funding to support the attorney general, and new efforts to combat misinformation.

The CPJ delegation traveled to Quito to meet with President Guillermo Lasso to discuss the deteriorating press freedom conditions and the impact of the public safety crisis on journalists throughout the country, as documented by CPJ and Fundamedios.

Lasso was not able to attend the meeting due to illness, but the delegation met with Corral, other government representatives, local journalists, editors, members of the national assembly, authorities, representatives from foreign embassies, and international donors.

Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna and Senior Consultant for Latin America Carlos Lauria led the CPJ delegation, together with former CPJ awardee Janet Hinostroza and Fundamedios Executive Director César Ricaurte.

“The government’s commitment to investing in mechanisms that bolster journalist safety is consequential and supports Ecuador’s expressed commitment to press freedom,” said Martínez de la Serna. “In a country confronting a public safety crisis, Ecuadorian journalists’ ability to report on sensitive issues of public interest is crucial for the country’s democracy.”

“This CPJ mission has confirmed the serious deterioration of press freedom conditions for the Ecuadorian press due to several forms of violence,” said Ricaurte. “The government’s commitment and the request to international donors to become more involved in efforts to protect journalists are specific results from this mission that we value positively, and that we hope will be a first step for Ecuador receiving more attention from the international community.”

In recent months, Ecuadorian journalists have increasingly come under attack. CPJ found that at least five Ecuadorian journalists had bombs mailed to them and that local journalists were forced into exile due to death threats. Fundamedios and other local press freedom groups have documented a serious spike of violence against journalists coming from different actors, including protesters, organized crime, and government officials.

In 2022, the killing of three journalists – Gerardo Delgado, Mike Cabrera, and César Vivanco – and the disappearance of journalist Fernando León, further emphasized the dire state of press freedom in Ecuador. (Mike Cabrera and César Vivanco are not included in CPJ’s 2022 killed report as CPJ was not able to establish their killings were related to their work as journalists.)

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the killing of two Ecuadorian journalists and a driver working on the Ecuadorian-Colombian border assignment for the daily El Comercio. The case remains unsolved.

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In parallel, Periodistas Sin Cadenas documented a total of 92 cases of aggressive actions against the media between January and March 2023, in comparison with a total of 41 in the same period in 2022. In other words, according to information obtained by the organisation, the numbers of actions against journalists have for all intents and purposes doubled in the first few months of 2023 relative to the previous year.

The government’s failure to provide protection has resulted in a hostile environment in which organised crime groups and other criminal elements directly target Ecuadorian journalists. The announcement that journalist Karol Noroña, a reporter for the GK news website, had left the country in March after receiving death threats led to public consternation and made evident the vulnerability of press workers. This has not been an isolated case, as little after another one came to light. The identity of the person at the center the case remains anonymous in order to protect their safety. We do know, however, that they have endured 8 months of death threats.

The second case evolved just weeks after Karol Noroña’s sudden departure from the country. Noroña was in charge of covering organised crime and issues surrounding the crisis in Ecuador’s prison system. These cases serve as examples of the government’s failure to effectively protect the media and provide guarantees for the freedom and safety of those who practice journalism.

A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently visited Ecuador to verify the deteriorating press situation. In meetings with authorities, the delegation highlighted the degree to which the lack of security in the country specifically impacts the work of journalists.

CPJ program director Carlos Martínez and senior consultant for Latin America Carlos Lauría indicated that journalists are not just another victim of the insecurity in the country, rather they are directly targeted by organised crime groups. This has been proven by the events of the last few weeks.

In meetings with CPJ and Fundamedios, the government committed to assigning resources to the Mechanism for Protection of Victims and Witnesses. The Public Prosecutor’s Office noted that it would seek civil society support in increasing awareness of threats against journalists.

The dialogue, however, comes up short in the face of the weakened security situation media workers have to endure. Furthermore, this situation could carry important consequences for citizens’ rights to access and share information, and it could be translated into a weakening of democratic institutions.

The signatories urgently call on Ecuadorian authorities to establish protocols for effective action in cases in which journalists’ lives are at risk. We believe it is urgent to implement security measures to protect targeted journalists and at the same time maintain robust communication with them.

We urgently call for training to be undertaken regarding the risks journalists have to face, and we urge the government to immediately honour the commitments it has made to address the situation.

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Ecuadorian authorities must thoroughly investigate a death threat against Karol Noroña, bring those responsible to justice, and ensure that criminal groups do not interfere with the work of the country’s press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On March 24, Noroña, a reporter for the independent Quito-based news website GK, met with a source who told her that the leader of a drug trafficking group had threatened to kill the journalist due to her reporting on organized crime and violence in Ecuador’s prisons, according to news reports and Isabela Ponce, GK’s editorial director, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.

Within 24 hours, Noroña fled Ecuador, Ponce said. She declined to provide more details about the nature of the threat to protect Noroña and her sources. “The plan is for her to stay outside the country until her safe return is guaranteed,” Ponce said.

Ponce told CPJ that GK was still deciding whether to file a criminal complaint with the Attorney General’s office, partly because Noroña has reported on how some alleged drug traffickers and gang leaders may have received lenient treatment from that institution. The Attorney General’s office in Quito, the capital, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

“Ecuadorian authorities must investigate who is behind the threats made to journalist Karol Noroña and ensure that she can return to Ecuador and report safely,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “It is essential that the Ecuadorian authorities take swift action to address threats and harassment to journalists and create an environment where journalists feel safe to do their work.”

Noroña reports on organized crime and Ecuador’s overcrowded penitentiaries that, in recent years, have been the scene of deadly riots that have killed hundreds of prisoners. In March, she reported on the attempted murder of the warden of the women’s prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, and conducted interviews with inmates on the high rate of homicides inside prisons.

In a March 28 statement, GK called the death threat against Noroña “another example of the security crisis and the penetration of drug trafficking in the country that affects all sectors of society.”

On April 3, the Quito-based free press group Fundamedios, in its quarterly report, found that Noroña’s case was the latest in a series of threats by criminal groups against Ecuadorian journalists that were silencing the press in the country. Among other incidents:

• On March 19, the digital station Vinces TV in the southern town of Huaquillas dropped its police and crime coverage and moved to a community news and entertainment format after receiving threats from criminal groups. A March 19 Vinces TV statement, reviewed by CPJ, said: “In a country that doesn’t guarantee the safety of journalists, it’s impossible to report the news with total freedom.”

• Also in March, letter bombs were sent to five TV and radio journalists, one of which exploded and slightly injured a journalist. Authorities were continuing to investigate the origin of the bombs.

• Over several days in early February, Jose Luis Ojeda, general manager of the independent online TV and radio station Antena 7 in the southern city of Loja, received seven phone calls from two criminal gangs who threatened to harm one of the journalist’s daughters unless he paid them US$5,000, according to reports and Ojeda, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app. Ojeda said the extortion threat came after Antena 7 reported on illegal gold mining in the region and the influence of drug money in local politics.

CPJ’s email to the Attorney General’s office in Quito about these cases did not receive a response.

A CPJ delegation will travel to Quito next week and meet with local journalists, editors, members of the national assembly, and authorities, including President Guillermo Lasso, to assess press freedom conditions.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Ecuadorean authorities to do everything possible to identify those responsible for an intimidation campaign against journalists in which booby-trapped USB sticks were mailed to five journalists employed by privately-owned TV channels and radio stations. One exploded on 20 March, causing slight injuries to its recipient.

When Lenin Artieda, an anchor with Ecuavisa TV in the port city Guayaquil, returned from paternity leave on 20 March, he found a mysterious USB stick inside one of the letters awaiting and, when he connected it to his computer, it triggered a small explosion that inflicted superficial injuries to his hand and face.

Similar letters containing booby-trapped USB sticks were sent to four other journalists working for TC Televisión in Guayaquil and for Teleamazonas and Radio EXA in Quito. These are all national broadcasters that tend to support President Guillermo Lasso’s conservative government.

“Everything seems to suggest that this was a planned and coordinated attack with the aim of undermining the work of the national media and sowing fear in newsrooms in general,” said Artur Romeu, the director of RSF’s Latin America bureau. “It ratchets up the climate of insecurity and self-censorship that is becoming part of the life of journalists in Ecuador. We call for a thorough investigation by the authorities to shed light on this targeted attack against journalists.”

Criminal police chief Xavier Chango said the substance found within the five USB sticks was RDX, a military-type explosive used in the mining industry. All five envelopes were sent from Quimsaloma, a locality mid-way between Quito and Guayaquil. The police are looking for the sender, who left a name and phone number with the delivery company.

The targeted journalists are meanwhile continuing to work “normally,” said Miguel Rivadeneira, a journalist with Radio EXA in Quito. He added: “I am not getting any special protection but I am now taking precautions. For example, I now often change my route when travelling to work.”

His precautions reflect an overall decline in the safety of journalists in Ecuador. This is especially so in port regions such as Guayaquil, the epicentre of growing violence that is attributable to the increasingly powerful drug cartels.

Two men on a motorcycle fired off a volley of shots while driving past the entrance to the RTS TV channel in Guayaquil in October 2022. A stick of dynamite was exploded outside the Teleamazonas TV channel in the same city in 2020.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns Ecuadorean President Guillermo Lasso’s violent diatribes against the independent news website La Posta and calls on the government to respect investigative reporting by journalists, who are already threatened by Ecuador’s increasingly violent gang warfare.

“A price has been put on my head by criminal organisations,” La Posta’s Venezuelan founder, Andersson Boscán, told RSF, adding that he had learned this from a police source. “But the worst of the threats is the one by the president on the national TV channel, the threat of waging a war against those who want to abuse freedom of expression,” added one of the website’s investigative reporters, Jefferson Sanguña.

Sanguña was referring to President Lasso’s televised address on 14 February, when he referred to La Posta’s investigative reporters as “media terrorists” and accused them of being linked to drug trafficking.

The attacks were prompted by La Posta’s publication of an investigative report entitled “The Big Godfather” on 9 January about a network of corruption, which led parliament to set up a commission of enquiry. The fruit of six months of investigations by seven La Posta reporters, the report revealed alleged influence peddling within state-owned companies involving the president’s brother-in-law, and claimed that the Albanian mafia funded Lasso’s presidential election campaign.

“President Guillermo Lasso’s threat of ‘war’ against journalists doing investigative reporting is a desperate attempt to silence them,” said Artur Romeu, the director of RSF’s Latin America bureau. “But he didn’t stop there. By trying to smear the journalists with clumsy accusations of colluding with drug traffickers, he is putting their lives in danger in a country embroiled in an increasingly violent gang war, one with ramifications both internationally and within the Ecuadorian state that require investigation. These absurd attacks must stop, and the government must respect investigative journalism, which is essential to the right to information in Ecuador.”

In the days following the publication of their first reports with information compromising for the government, La Posta’s journalists saw their personal data and photos of their loved-ones being posted on websites and on anonymous social media accounts. “We had to change our daily habits, our methods of moving around, and those of our family members,” La Posta co-founder and co-director Luis Eduardo Vivanco said.

Verbal attacks on the media by government officials have been common in Ecuador, but the climate had improved somewhat after President Rafael Correa’s departure in 2017. The new threats against journalists by President Lasso have exacerbated the violence of the environment for journalism in Ecuador, which is due in large measure to the growing power of criminal organisations linked to drug-trafficking.

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Arturo Torres investigates how disinformation moves in Ecuador

Arturo Torres is one of the only Ecuadorian journalists who focuses on a global phenomenon ever more present in our societies: disinformation. His investigations began in 2020 when COVID-19 began to have a global effect. He uncovered 13 simultaneous disinformation campaigns driven by political interests, with the goal of weakening the government of then-president Lenin Moreno. He published this investigation on the news website he cofounded, Código Vidrio.

The journalistic work revealed the spread of alarming content and shocking videos about the city of Guayaquil that went viral around the world. “We saw that there was a link, that there was a factory of accounts. Everything was very planned, there was nothing spontaneous. That is where we established that there was much more behind it, that there was a mind thinking and people who knew very well what they were doing,” Torres said. This would mean that it is disinformation, not misinformation. The difference is important: misinformation is false information shared unknowingly, while disinformation is false information deliberately shared with the intent to deceive.

The journalist underlines, further, that there was a know-how. It was successful because it focused on an entity responsible for managing the pandemic – in this case, Moreno’s government – “that yes, made mistakes, like all governments in the early months of the pandemic, because we were facing an unknown situation, but the extent was greatly exaggerated and overstated. There was a political objective to undermine the government.”

Global Voices (GV): Arturo, how do we explain this to people unfamiliar with the idea? Saying disinformation makes it seem like everything that was said about Guayaquil was a lie.

Arturo Torres (AT): At first it was difficult to discern. This precisely is that art of disinformation, because it sells you information as something tricky, that’s half true, that basically has a mix of true and falsified data. This feeds the disinformation and amplifies it. For example, they are burning bodies in Guayaquil. In Guayaquil, there was, effectively, an overflow of bodies that people had in the streets, and nobody was collecting them from houses, and the bodies became sources of infection and were taken out into the streets. This is true. But, after this came the idea of mixing images, since they were burning in those same places furniture that had been used by people infected by the virus. Since we had no information, we were all panicking about whether this person had touched or had contact with objects, the virus would be there too. So it was decided in this case that they were burning bodies in the streets of Guayaquil. This was false, because basically what they used were [images of] bodies, which they combined with images of the people burning furniture. But they were not burning bodies in Guayaquil. The same was done with the graves, for example, there was already talk of huge graves in Guayaquil to bury the bodies because everything was out of control, and they used images from other countries that have a much larger population. Everything was a matter of overestimating the crisis and, on the other hand, showing a totally inoperative government, overwhelmed, without a plan. This, evidently, caused anxiety and concern on a topic that was central at the time.

GV: From when you began to investigate disinformation as a journalist at the beginning of the pandemic to now, what is the situation of the country?

AT: In Ecuador, the government of Rafael Correa [2007–2017] took the lead on how to manage disinformation. They were very methodical, that must be recognized, they always shared a lot of studies, information with data, they were constantly mapping reality. Since 2010, they already knew what was coming, the power they were going to gain and the relevance of content on social networks. They already visualized this transition from media to the networks and began to work from that moment on in a sustained manner, since 2012, creating accounts, media linked to social networks, bypassing the big media and creating their own digital media and account apparatus on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – which was already beginning – , but mostly on Facebook and Twitter. Why did they start disinformation? Because basically the government [of Correa] began to persecute opposition actors, journalists, social leaders, environmental activists, they began to attack them from their own pool of media on social networks […] From there began the smear campaigns against figures that they found uncomfortable. So, there was a permanent and constant narrative of demonization, of accusations […] Right now the movement of former President Correa [correísmo] is the one that best manages social networks. They are always trending on Twitter, all the time. Every week their trends are number one on Twitter. In addition, these irregular and even criminal patterns have been identified, which is why hundreds of their Facebook and Twitter accounts have been closed.

GV: While you explain that with Correísmo there is a kind of genesis of disinformation in Ecuador, considering that we are on the eve of local government elections next year, what other actors use these practices? 

AT: This [disinformation] has spread like a fungus. Basically, most politicians resort to this same tactic of hiring an advertising agency to divulge information about a candidate, but the troll center* is implicit, that is, it is part of that contract. This model has been very effective and since, after the pandemic, the exposure we have to cell phones and everything digital is much greater than conventional media. They are defining elections. There were candidates who became popular on social networks and made it to the second round [in the 2021 national elections] from platforms like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. This practice was started by Correísmo and now I believe that most of the candidates are using it.

GV: So is disinformation a phenomenon we have to live with?

AT: Yes, it is a phenomenon we have to live with. This is also what happens in the real world, in elections. Because of how the laws are, the one with the greatest economic resources almost always wins because our institutions are weak and people are also generally persuaded. I don’t want focus only on Ecuador because it is a global phenomenon. We see what happened with Brexit, what happened with Trump in the U.S. In other words, the fact of falling into the nets of emotions is an innate matter. Emotion is much stronger than reason. So, when they found and discovered the formula to reach emotions through social networks and sell an emotion as a fact, we are in the field of fake news…

GV: Finally, in the case of Ecuador, is there a platform that stands out as a space where more disinformation circulates?

AT: Yes, WhatsApp because anything is shared in groups. It is the medium that is used the most to misinform because it is so familiar, you believe in the friend who shares something with you and you open that content, so basically there are no filters […] I also believe that TikTok [is ripe with disinformation]. TikTok is basically video, but how will you filter disinformation through videos? In other words, it is much more complicated to filter disinformation on the TikTok platform, which is also Chinese, than to filter on Facebook or Twitter, which have done a much more extensive job. But, TikTok, due to the format, it is more difficult to distinguish what is disinformation from what is information. I think that this is going to be a genre that is going to be much more used by politicians, and I am not getting into the subject of Meta yet. That is, the whole question that comes with virtuality and what they plan to do with Facebook, of virtual reality. This is also going to be another level of misinformation that forces us journalists to first interpret reality, analyze it and then see how we are going to undertake to, specifically, raise awareness in the community. But, of course, this crisis is also an opportunity because little by little people are discerning the cacophony, the noise. People are becoming more familiar with disinformation, what it causes, and almost always resort to serious means to verify certain data. It is a practice that is beginning to gain much more strength and that evidently strengthens the media so that they maintain a rigorous verification system.

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The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) condemned the attack on a television station and threats against a newspaper in Ecuador, which “seek to intimidate the activity of journalism.” The organization called on the authorities to promptly investigate these acts of violence to identify and prosecute those responsible.

Security cameras captured two individuals on a motorcycle when they shot at the access door to the RTS channel in the city of Guayaquil, Guayas province, early Friday morning. The perpetrators of the attack also left in front of the channel’s offices a pamphlet signed by “La Nueva Generación”, an apparent reference to one of Mexico’s drug trafficking cartels; the pamphlet contained death threats against the editor of the newspaper Extra, Galo Martínez Leisker, and the newspaper’s vendors, in addition to “prohibiting” its sale in Guayaquil and the cities of Esmeraldas, Machala, and Cuenca.

IAPA President Jorge Canahuati and the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information chairman Carlos Jornet condemned “these acts of violence that seek to intimidate journalistic activity and provoke self-censorship.”

Canahuati, president of Grupo Opsa, of Honduras, and Jornet, editor of the newspaper La Voz del Interior, Argentina, said that they received complaints about “the intimidating increase in the presence of Mexican drug cartels in Guayas, and the insecurity suffered by journalists in that area of the country.”

The IAPA officers stressed that, as established in the Declaration of Chapultepec, a decalogue on the principles of freedom of expression and the press in a democracy, “pressure, intimidation, violence of any kind and impunity for aggressors severely restrict freedom of expression and the press.” Therefore, “these acts must be promptly investigated and severely punished.”

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