Rep. Tony Cárdenas, the first Latino elected to represent California’s San Fernando Valley in Congress, has introduced a bill aimed at holding social media platforms accountable for misinformation and addressing the needs of non-English-speaking communities. The bill, titled LISTOS Act of 2023, would require social media platforms to communicate and enforce their policies in all languages, as well as report on the processes used to enforce those policies. The goal is to combat misinformation that disproportionately harms non-English-speaking communities, according to an article in El Día.

The statement from Cárdenas’ office highlights that social media platforms have failed to moderate multilingual content and that misinformation poses a danger to non-English-speaking communities and to the country's democracy. Cárdenas says the investment needed to curb the spread of misinformation must be made and that his bill addresses this problem.

The bill was referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee, of which Cárdenas is a member, and to the Foreign Relations Committee, to be determined by the President for consideration. In addition to Cárdenas, the bill has the support of other prominent Latino lawmakers, such as Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (CA-44), Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA-21), Rep. Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Rep. Juan Vargas (CA-52), Rep. Jesus G. “Chuy” Garcia (IL-4) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (TX-20).

The El Día article also mentions that misinformation in languages other than English has been a problem since the 2020 presidential election. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been pressuring companies like Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter to discuss the spread of Spanish-language misinformation, specifically on those platforms.

While there are multilingual fact-checkers, the amount of false information created and circulated makes it difficult to keep track of all of it. The proposed law seeks to address this challenge and ensure that social media platforms act consistently across all languages to combat misinformation and protect non-English-speaking communities.