Дело Фернандо Серимедо вскрывает угрозу цифрового манипулирования демократией в Латинской Америке

Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Latin America is confronting a debate with implications far beyond the region: the Cerimedo case. The issues it raises are hardly new. For years, we have discussed and warned about them in conferences and classrooms. Yet much of the political world appears scandalized only now that the consequences have struck close to home. Some seek to minimize them while others exaggerate them, remaining faithful to political opportunism and the familiar binary culture of good versus evil. A Bolivian prosecutor charged Fernando Cerimedo on Aug. 20 with attempted femicide after his former partner, Nadia Beller, survived a shooting outside a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra three days earlier. Cerimedo, an adviser to Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, was arrested attempting to leave the country. What emerged from that investigation has opened a larger digital Pandora's box, drawing attention to political violence, disinformation and the capacity of digital tools to distort public debate and weaken democratic confidence. Repercussions extend beyond Bolivia. In Brazil, he was linked to false claims about the 2022 election; in Argentina, he worked as a digital strategist for Javier Milei's 2023 campaign and cofounded La Derecha Diario, an outlet accused of disinformation; and in Chile, lawmakers are investigating the use of bots and trolls in political campaigns. Much of the criticism has focused on the political right. That should not lead us to treat digital manipulation as an inherently right-wing phenomenon. These technologies have no ideology of their own. Political actors across the spectrum can be tempted to use them when they offer an advantage; safeguards should depend not on who is manipulating the system but on the conduct itself. The Cerimedo case matters beyond Cerimedo himself: a digital ecosystem that political operators can exploit to distort public discussion and shape how citizens form political judgments. But the most troubling element may be one for which politicians and technology companies cannot bear all the blame. It is the extraordinary naivete, even voluntary servitude, with which individuals surrender their personal information. In an age of self-exposure and a desperate search for social validation, people place intimate details of their lives into digital systems they scarcely understand. This hands over raw material that can be used to categorize them and predict how they will act. This tracking amounts to a form of data neocolonialism, with vast quantities of digital information revealing fears, resentments and vulnerabilities. Combined with sophisticated algorithms, that data lets operators profile and target individuals with precision. The danger is not that every campaign uses sophisticated profiling, nor that Cerimedo's case proves all such techniques were used. The broader warning is that the technological capacity exists, is growing more powerful and operates with far less transparency than democratic societies should accept. Within this ecosystem, public conversation risks ceasing to be deliberative, and becoming a battlefield. Traditional theories of agenda-setting and editorial gatekeeping assumed institutions played a role in selecting and verifying information. That model has been disrupted by digital platforms whose algorithms reward anger and emotionally charged content since they generate engagement. The new political arsenal includes troll farms that flood discussion with abusive messages; bots that automate and amplify content; astroturfing that manufactures fake grassroots support; and targeted political advertising. None of these techniques alone determines how citizens vote, but together they can contaminate the environment shaping democratic consent, making emotions appear spontaneous while disguising their true origin. The same message can appear to emerge from thousands of voices at once, creating an illusion of consensus. The law moves on feet of clay, and politics occupies a contradictory role, both victim and perpetrator: leaders lack sufficient grasp of the technologies transforming democratic life, even as their own organizations adopt the same tools when useful. Algorithmic opacity, digital "black boxes" and sophisticated behavioral targeting make public scrutiny difficult. The result is an asymmetry of power between those who design or manipulate digital systems and the citizens they influence, one that demands a democratic response. Greater transparency around paid political advertising, automated accounts and campaign financing would address much of it. So would letting citizens know when they are interacting with a bot rather than a person, and who is paying to reach them. Personal-data protections matter as much, particularly as political groups combine commercial data with ideological profiles. Political microtargeting remains largely invisible, operating outside the scrutiny democracies expect of political persuasion. Platforms bear responsibility too, identifying coordinated manipulation without becoming arbiters of legitimate political opinion. The goal is not censorship but transparency about who is speaking, who is paying and how information moves through the system. None of it substitutes for a culture of digital literacy, since regulation alone cannot protect citizens who surrender information without understanding its value. The Cerimedo case should therefore be understood as more than another political scandal. It is a warning about the conditions under which politics will increasingly be practiced throughout Latin America and beyond, one in which allegations of private violence, evidence of disinformation and broader questions about digital manipulation now intersect. Freedom in the digital age requires more than the formal right to speak and vote. It requires citizens who understand the systems seeking to influence them, institutions able to scrutinize them, and leaders willing to set rules that apply regardless of which side benefits. If citizens surrender their privacy without understanding how their data can be used, voluntary servitude may weaken the republican institutions meant to protect them. Recovering sovereignty over democratic debate will require both stronger public safeguards and greater personal responsibility: transparent rules for the digital arena, and citizens more protective of their privacy and aware of how their data is used. Otherwise, liberty itself risks being reduced to little more than manipulable source code. Carlos Cantero is a Chilean academic at the International University of La Rioja in Spain and the author of "Digital Society: Reason and Emotion." An international lecturer, adviser and consultant, he focuses on adaptability in the digital society, ethics, social innovation and human development. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.