Each video that spews propaganda on Alice Yi’s WeChat feed reminds her of the life she fled four decades ago.
In her native China, the government controlled her family’s land, and her mother lost a job merely because a sister lived in neighboring rival Taiwan. It was useless to speak out, Yi says, because the Communist Party and its propaganda machine could turn opponents to “dust.”
She dreamed of a democracy free of deceptive narratives.
Today, as co-founder of Asian Texans for Justice, one of the largest Asian American networks in Texas, she is among a legion of advocates across the United States combating disinformation targeting immigrant communities and people of color.
“We do need to speak out and speak loud,” Yi says.
Amid the growth of social media, a decline in traditional news outlets and the prominence of “fake news,” election disinformation has surged in the United States and beyond. Experts say immigrant communities and people of color are particular targets, as bad actors exploit long-held political fears and ideologies and find these voters where they congregate—on free messaging apps such as WeChat and WhatsApp.
“Who controls the narrative controls the power,” says Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values, which fights disinformation aimed at Black voters. “We're seeing each day that information is being weaponized against some of the most vulnerable communities.”
For two decades, Asian Americans have been the fastest-growing voter population in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center. Latinxs, expected to be the largest demographic in the U.S. by 2050, constitute the second fastest-growing group of eligible voters, while Black eligible voters have increased by 7 percent since 2020, according to Pew.
These groups tend to lean Democratic rather than Republican, research shows, and that’s led to an increase in “racialized disinformation” coming from the right.
Jaime Longoria is manager of research and training for the Disinfo Defense League, which brings together multiracial advocates to respond to targeted disinformation.
“A lot of the strategies that are being used on the right happen to use a lot of fear mongering, a lot of scapegoating,” Longoria says.
During the 2022 midterm elections, Asian Americans in Raleigh, North Carolina, received mailers claiming an Executive Order that President Joe Biden instituted to advance equity for marginalized groups would instead discriminate against Asian and white people.
That, says Jimmy Patel-Nguyen, communications director for North Carolina Asian Americans Together, was a “blatant attempt to try to subvert our power and our influence in these elections.” To address election misconceptions, Patel-Nguyen’s group operates a multilingual hotline voters can call to get trusted information in their primary language.
Eliana Alzate/News21
Asian Texans for Justice Co-Founder Alice Yi, at her Austin, Texas, home on June 21, 2024, holds a framed photo of her standing beside former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Yi came to the U.S. in 1981 to attend college, beginning a decades-long journey to amplify the voices of other immigrants.
Other organizations have launched multilingual fact-checking operations to fight disinformation.
Factchequeado partners with dozens of media outlets to distribute explainer videos and fact-checking analyses in English and Spanish. Co-founder Laura Zommer says the organization wants to help people understand the electoral system, not direct them to a specific political party. The group also offers a free “fact checks of the week” newsletter and solicits tips about false content on WhatsApp.
Viet Fact Check, a project of the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, provides online fact checks in English and Vietnamese, a newsletter and, in some places, in-person workshops where participants across generations learn how to identify disinformation.
Managing Editor Saoli Nguyen says she’s seen how individuals’ ideologies can influence how they digest information. When college protesters in the U.S. rallied for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, Vietnamese social media influencers sought support for Palestinians by referencing past American interventions in Asia and claiming the United States. puts “power and wealth over human life.” Nguyen recalls a reader messaging Viet Fact Check about those claims. That person’s perception of the United States was as the “good guy” who battled communism during the Vietnam War.
“The person who messaged us was just like, ‘I don't know what to believe anymore,’” Nguyen says. Voters should be persistent in seeking out accurate information, says Nguyen. But she also offers a word of caution: “The truth is not always going to be convenient.”
At the University of Texas at Austin, Angela Lim co-wrote a study about misinformation among Filipinos. She found that many families—her own included—share information via group chats on Facebook Messenger. However, Lim’s research found that Filipinos often don’t speak up when something false is shared, because keeping the peace is an important cultural value.
“With politics,” she says, “we're often told to not rock the boat or to just lay low.”
In Austin, Alice Yi regularly organizes conversations among community leaders to foster anti-disinformation efforts. One recent day, she sat down with Hatem Natsheh, a community organizer and advocate for Arab Americans, Muslims, and Palestinians; Becca DeFelice, head of a group working to elect more women from diverse backgrounds; and Azra Siddiqi, founder of a nonprofit working to increase civic engagement among South Asians in Texas.
Natsheh has long fended off disinformation about Muslims and Arabs, which worsened after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. “They're going to continue going after the Latinos, the African American, the Asian American,” he says.
Siddiqi, founder and president of WiseUp TX, says her group has created voter information videos in different South Asian languages and disseminated them in WhatsApp groups. But she notes that disinformation doesn’t only circulate online. She points to the rhetoric surrounding a state law that restricts the application of “foreign laws” in courts to prevent Islamic influence. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism, says such measures are anti-Muslim and found about 200 similar bills have been proposed in states since 2010.
“I feel that we’re consistently dehumanized,” Siddiqi says.
At sixty-seven years old, Yi refuses to surrender to the onslaught. She says she’ll continue to battle for the ideal she dreamed of when she first arrived in America.
“My son [and] my grandson will carry our family last name. They will forever [be] ‘foreigner’ to those people if we don’t fight today,” says Yi, adding that when she one day looks back on her life, she wants to be able to close her eyes and know: “I fought for democracy.”
News21 reporters Samantha Grove and Jordan Moore contributed to this story. This report is part of “Fractured,” an examination of the state of American democracy produced by Carnegie-Knight News21. For more stories, visit https://fractured.news21.com/.