Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are demanding Elon Musk to lay out his plan to combat disinformation in Spanish on Twitter, expressing concern that his decision to cut off the company's security teams could disproportionately harm vulnerable communities.

In a letter to Musk on Tuesday, they voiced “serious concerns” that the mass layoffs to Twitter’s moderation workforce may have “harmful and long-lasting consequences […] especially for Spanish-language and other non-English language users”.

According to The WashingtonPost, “the letter called on Twitter to disclose how many content moderators it currently employs, what languages they are fluent in, what markets they serve and what countries they are based in, and to contrast that with its staffing levels and language capacities before recent cuts. Lawmakers also pressed Musk on whether Twitter will still review as much content ‘in its original language’ as before, and how the company planned to make sure its algorithmic moderation is “equally effective across all languages in which the platform operates”.

“All users deserve the same level of protection from harassment, fraud, and illegal activity regardless of the language they speak at home”, they wrote in a letter shared exclusively with The Technology 202.

Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) led the letter, which was co-signed by five other Democratic lawmakers.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has long pressed platforms to reveal how many of its content moderators are proficient in Spanish, with little success, according to the same publication.

“Companies have largely responded by providing broad figures of their investments into content moderation, without breaking down the language proficiencies of its workforces. That has frustrated Democratic lawmakers, who say the lack of hard data has left them in the dark. It’s unclear exactly how much Musk’s layoffs may have affected the company’s ability to detect violating content in languages other than English”.

Inga Trauthig, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin who studies Spanish-language misinformation, said she fears a “downward spiral” at Twitter where a crush for resources causes Spanish-language moderation to be underfunded.

“Twitter’s safety team has been shrunk significantly as it pivots to relying more on automated moderation. That could hamper its ability to curb harmful posts in other languages, which can be difficult to detect due to cultural and linguistic complexities”.

The letter marks the latest area in which Democratic lawmakers are increasing pressure on ElonMusk, who has angered with congressional oversight in the past, The Post reports.