Cambridge Analytica, a company that marked a first stage in the political use of personal data. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano.
By Alejandra Garcia Elizalde – Jul 9, 2026
The years 2025 and 2026 mark a turning point for Latin America, with presidential elections that are redefining the geopolitical balance of the region. Recent contests, such as those in Honduras, Peru and Colombia, show the growth of far-right forces that are advancing by narrow margins, in a context of influence operations where external actors no longer try to hide their participation.
In this new scenario, it is inevitable to raise a fundamental question: how have new digital technologies reconfigured the strategies of political intervention, electoral manipulation and the dispute for power in Latin America?
The article “From Cambridge Analytica to the electoral deepfake: how technologies reconfigure the political dispute in Latin America”, by Lina Merino and Alfio Finola, explain this transformation. Although the intention to influence democratic processes is not something new, current tools have enormously increased the scale, speed and capacity of penetration of these operations.
The text begins with the case of Cambridge Analytica, a company that marked a first stage in the political use of personal data. The company developed psychographic profiles of voters through information obtained mainly from social networks such as Facebook. Through the OCEAN model, which classifies personality traits, it sought to identify psychological characteristics of different groups in order to send personalized political messages.
“This strategy allowed the transition from general propaganda to electoral micro-segmentation: campaigns designed to specifically influence certain sectors of the population,” the authors analyze.
In Latin America, Argentina emerged as one of the first cases where these practices were implemented. In 2018, during an investigation by the British Parliament, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, recognized that the company had worked in the country. Although he refused to reveal details about his clients, documents presented during the investigation mentioned a campaign against Kirchnerism that included information gathering, information warfare, spreading false accusations and the use of fake accounts on social networks.
According to the authors, this case demonstrates that “the techniques developed by Cambridge Analytica did not disappear with the closure of the company in 2018, but instead were adopted and expanded by other actors.” This evolution is also associated with companies such as Palantir, founded by Peter Thiel, which develops platforms capable of integrating large amounts of information coming from government records, financial systems, satellite images and security databases.
While these tools may have legitimate applications in fields such as healthcare and public administration, the authors warn that they can also be used for “surveillance, population classification and social control.” The central dispute is who controls these infrastructures capable of collecting, analyzing and using information to influence on political decisions.
The Colombian case of 2025-2026 is presented as an advanced example of this new stage. During this electoral cycle, numerous disinformation campaigns were documented against the left-wing candidate Ivan Cepeda, who defended dialogue as a way to achieve definitive peace in the country.
“These operations – Merino and Finola explain – combined different tools: coordinated anonymous accounts, targeted political advertising, fake news, impersonation of recognized media outlets, manipulation of images and content generated with artificial intelligence.”
Social Media Microtargeting and the Evolving Ministry of Truth
The authors describe several phases of this strategy. “First, false accusations were spread against the candidate and his family through social networks. Then, manipulated materials appeared imitating publications from journalistic media in order to give more credibility to invented information. Later, artificial intelligence tools were used to create fake videos and audios, including a recording that imitated the voice of an electoral authority.”
These practices show an evolution from information manipulation towards the direct fabrication of nonexistent facts.
Another important axis of the article is the so-called “Hondurasgate”, presented as a case of regional political disinformation operation. According to investigations cited by the authors, a network allegedly attempted to create a digital structure from the United States to launch campaigns against Latin American governments considered progressive.
The audios released in this case, which involve high-level electoral authorities of the country, include conversations about the creation of false content and political influence strategies. The episode reflects the growing concern about transnational networks of digital manipulation.
The difference between old propaganda campaigns and current digital operations is not only technological, but also one of magnitude. While earlier forms of propaganda aimed to influence large audiences through common narratives, today’s technologies allow the creation of fragmented political realities designed for different social sectors.
Alejandra Garcia Elizalde is a Cuban journalist working in Venezuela as an evening anchor for Telesur in English and a Latin American correspondent for Resumen Latinoamericano in English.
