How a TikTok network spreading Spanish-language immigration misinformation gained traction

Nearly 40 Spanish-language TikTok accounts, several even posing as Telemundo and Univision, spread falsehoods and remained undetected for at least a month.

A rumor falsely claiming green card holders are banned from leaving and re-entering the U.S. spread like wildfire on TikTok this week, garnering more than 21 million views across dozens of videos shared by a network of nearly 40 accounts, many posing as Spanish-language news outlets to share immigration-related misinformation.

The accounts have been sharing doctored videos that contain artificial intelligence-generated content and the voices of well-known professional journalists to spread misinformation about immigration and other divisive topics that tend to go viral on social media, according to Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s graduate campus in New York City.

Most of the TikTok accounts are named with generic terms that include the words "noticias" (news) or "noticiero" (newscast), and eight of them falsely use the logos of two major Spanish-language news networks, Univision and Telemundo. (Telemundo and NBC News are owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast Corp.)

This newest Spanish-language disinformation network "hijacks both the kind of viral mechanics of the TikTok algorithm, plus the very human peer-to-peer nature of immigrant communities," Mantzarlis, who also runs Faked Up, a newsletter about digital disinformation, told NBC News.

Mantzarlis first started tracking the network of accounts last month after he saw a series of posts falsely claiming supermarkets would start requiring identification to buy groceries. In his newsletter, he said, some of the videos included messaging that pointed to "a clear effort to target undocumented immigrants."

He noticed the accounts mainly focused on posting about President Donald Trump and immigration.

This week, at least 25 videos shared by the network of TikTok accounts spreading false information about green card holders impersonated the voice of Univision reporter Javier Díaz. Díaz did not respond to a request for comment and Univision did not comment.

The 25 videos were deleted from TikTok after NBC News sent links for the videos when requesting comment from the social media platform on Tuesday. NBC News also sent the company links for the 38 TikTok accounts Mantzarlis found were part of the network.

By Wednesday afternoon, all 38 TikTok accounts were taken down.

In a statement to NBC News, a TikTok spokesperson said, "We continue to protect our Spanish-speaking community from misleading content and accounts by investing in moderation teams and technologies, partnering with fact-checkers, and building media literacy tips and tools."

According to the spokesperson, TikTok took down the videos and accounts because they violated the company's integrity and authenticity policies that prohibit harmful misinformation, misleading AI-generated content, impersonation and deceptive behaviors.

A fake message — and messenger
A false narrative shared by one of the accounts in the network last month used the voice of former Telemundo anchor María Celeste Arrarás to make it look like she was reporting on Trump considering a plan to provide a legal pathway for undocumented immigrants without a criminal record.

Arrarás posted the clip on her Instagram account to let her followers know the news in the video "IS FAKE."

"They've edited several reports I presented on television years ago to mislead the public. IT'S AN AUDIO CUT to make it seem like I'm reporting news that ISN'T REAL. Please spread the word," she wrote in Spanish.

As of Tuesday, that video featuring Arrarás' voice appeared to have already been deleted from the TikTok account. But the account remained functional until Wednesday morning along with several other videos containing misinformation, including a new one published the day before using Arrarás' voice.

Before TikTok shut down the accounts Wednesday afternoon, the videos that included misinformation about green card holders and legal pathways for undocumented immigrants had reached the feed of an immigrant woman in New York City whom Amelia Scdoris, a community organizer at Cabrini Immigrant Services, had been helping.