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This story comes to us from our partners at聽, a project that brings the work of immigrant journalists to digital news sites and public radio.

At the beginning of 2021, Catalina Jaramillo had just started working as a staff writer at聽, investigating and correcting misleading information about COVID-19 in Spanish. Immigrant communities were facing a tidal wave of inaccurate claims about the coronavirus, a lot of it on social media.

At the time she began her new job, the COVID-19 vaccine was already available, and Jaramillo was doubtful there would be much misleading information to correct. Relaying her thoughts in an interview on  about the impact of COVID-19 on immigrants, Jaramillo said, 鈥淭he worst happened already.鈥� She added, 鈥淚 felt like [2020] was the big misinformation spread. I was so wrong.鈥�

Misleading information about COVID-19 comes in many forms. One of the most common is what Jaramillo refers to as misinformation. This is false information spread without awareness of it being untrue. 鈥淎 typical example would be your tio, your uncle, sending you something on WhatsApp about COVID vaccines without knowing that [it鈥檚] false or incorrect, just because they just want to share it with you because they love you,鈥� Jaramillo says.

Now, Jaramillo realizes that 鈥渕isinformation, unfortunately, is here to stay,鈥� and worse, 鈥渋t keeps coming.鈥� She likens it to a 鈥済ame of whack-a-mole. You kick one, it comes from another place.鈥� This year alone, there鈥檚 been  and  with dangerous and inappropriate drugs, such as ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug for animals.

鈥淚mmigrants are particularly vulnerable to online misinformation,鈥� Jaramillo adds. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 trust a lot of people, so they鈥檙e in a lonely place. And that鈥檚 when predators can be more effective, because you don鈥檛 have someone to ask, or you could not read the media because you don鈥檛 understand the language.鈥� 

According to a recent  Latinos in particular spend more time on almost all social media platforms compared with the general population, but the content filtering used by these platforms is insufficient to correct the wave of misinformation aimed at immigrant communities and non-English speakers. According to a  last year, Facebook only detected 30% of misinformation in Spanish鈥攃ompared with 70% in English.

Immigrants are also  like WhatsApp, which allows them to stay connected with family and friends no matter where they are. But WhatsApp has also been used to circulate messages riddled with . 鈥淭hese messages are inherently tied to the community,鈥� says Nicol谩s R铆os, an audience editor at  who has reported on the impact of misinformation on immigrant communities in New York. 

Occasionally, Documented asks people to send in suspicious messages they have received to see what kind of false information is being circulated. 鈥淚 was not getting, for example, from the Latino undocumented community in New York, fake messages about hydroxychloroquine 鈥� but [I was getting messages about] a lot of herbs,鈥� R铆os explains. 鈥淲e in Latin America, people that grew in the countryside, we are very used to, because of indigenous culture, herbs that are medicinal.鈥�

The other form of misleading information, disinformation, can be more sinister, because it is false information spread with the intent to mislead and manipulate. People who circulate disinformation go to great lengths to make it more accessible in order to better manipulate their targets. 

While those spreading disinformation are often strategic in their approach to immigrant audiences, the same can鈥檛 always be said for those who provide accurate, reliable information. There is a lack of centralized science-based and vetted information for immigrants, making it harder for these communities to find reliable sources for the information that is relevant to them. 鈥淪ometimes, information gaps come from public programs themselves,鈥� R铆os notes. 鈥淭he bureaucracy gets too bureaucratic. Then, basically, you get these gaps and 鈥� you get people that are trying to fill the gaps and charging for that.鈥�

R铆os saw WhatsApp messages containing false information about COVID-19 cures, stimulus checks, and access to food鈥攊ssues the local undocumented Latino community wanted information on but had trouble finding accessible information about. The messages spread around the community were easy for people to understand because they were 鈥渋n Spanish, [and] had some local [slang]. It was more conversational,鈥� says R铆os. These messages would then provide a link to learn more but redirect to a page full of advertisements. R铆os adds, 鈥淭he fake news had the purpose of sending people in need to a website, so this guy who made it makes 10 cents per click.鈥�

Around the country, organizations are making an effort to push against the wave of misinformation with scientifically sound facts about COVID-19. Documented created a centralized guide with basic explainers and resources for undocumented Spanish-speaking people in New York. FactCheck.org has been making an effort to translate its stories from English into Spanish and works in alliance with . Another news outlet, , uses colorful graphics and online chats to bring accurate information about the virus to Spanish speakers in Arizona and its neighboring state of Sonora, Mexico.

One of the most successful efforts has been led by , an organization that works with the Vietnamese American community in Alabama and Mississippi. In Alabama, upward of 90% of Vietnamese Americans had already been vaccinated by June 2021, compared with only 34% of all Alabamians who had been vaccinated at that time. 

Daniel Le, the branch manager of BPSOS Gulf Coast, credits this high vaccination rate to the organization鈥檚 concerted effort to make information accessible to Vietnamese Americans. 鈥淲hatever information they receive or that they understand, it usually comes from us. We are the [ones] who gather critical information, translate [it] into Vietnamese, and then we disseminate it to an outlet,鈥� says Le. For BPSOS, dissemination of this information takes many forms, including flyers, visits to churches, and town-hall-style meetings. 

Le says a big part of his group鈥檚 success is that they listen to and respond to members of the community. 鈥淲e need to include community members as part of the solution. I think that鈥檚 one of the things that our local government is lacking, [which] is to understand and listen to the communities. They assume what we need, but those needs may not [necessarily be] the needs of a community,鈥� says Le.