Smear campaigns using social media to criminalise Guatemala activists

Networks of powerful elites in Guatemala are using social media platforms to orchestrate coordinated online smear campaigns. These are targeting anti-corruption activists, environmental defenders and Indigenous leaders, Global Witness today reveals.

A new report by the investigative organisation details how popular social media platforms including X, Facebook and TikTok are being flooded with thousands of abusive, hateful, defamatory and misleading posts targeting activists and Indigenous leaders in the country.

The report draws on interviews with Mayan leaders, including some who are in prison or exile. It examines how these smear campaigns lay the groundwork for spurious criminal charges that threaten victims with decades in jail.

Driving digital repression

The investigation maps the powerful networks of political and economic interests behind many of the attacks. Campaigners say the attacks are helping to silence dissent and undermine Guatemala’s fragile democracy.

Corrupt networks, particularly within Guatemala’s justice system, have spent years working to erode democratic institutions and repress legitimate opposition in the Central American country.

The report uncovers how these same forces are now mobilising fake news sites and anonymous online accounts. They’re spreading disinformation that defames their political and ideological opponents and threatens them with criminal charges.

Campaigners say these online attacks are not isolated or spontaneous. Rather, they form part of a wider strategy to discredit dissent, intimidate communities, criminalise activists and protect entrenched power.

Global Witness senior policy advisor Javier Garate said:

What we are seeing in Guatemala is not random online abuse; it’s a coordinated strategy to silence those that threaten powerful interests.

These online abuse campaigns weaponise disinformation to destroy reputations, intimidate communities and clear the way for extractive violence. Far too often we see online smears of this kind preceding physical attacks, including lethal violence.

Guatemala shows us how failures in platform governance by companies such as Meta, X and TikTok have devastating consequences for communities and individuals around the world, as well as the rights and land they seek to defend.

Smear campaigns intensify

This surge in digital harassment is unfolding amid Guatemala’s fragile political landscape. This suffers from entrenched corruption, close links between political elites and organised crime. And there’s been a prolonged struggle to shed the legacy of military dictatorship and chronic impunity.

Anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo secured a surprise victory in the 2023 election. But state prosecutors refused to recognise the outcome, orchestrating efforts to overturn the result. Observers described the events as an “attempted coup”, which failed following massive Indigenous-led protests and international pressure.

The same forces behind the attempted coup now appear to be punishing protesters who defended the legitimacy of the election. And they’re driving coordinated smear campaigns against those who demonstrated to protect the democratic vote.

The report shows that Indigenous leaders and land activists asserting legitimate territorial and land rights are also frequent targets of these campaigns. Smear campaigns frequently frame Indigenous or land activism as criminal, extremist or foreign-influenced. This is reinforcing long-standing patterns of discrimination and repression against Mayan communities in Guatemala.

Global Witness warns that the aim of such attacks is to isolate defenders from their communities, pave the way for criminalisation, and delegitimise Indigenous claims to land and rights. Last year, key leaders of the pro-democracy movement that surged after the 2023 elections were arrested and could face decades in jail.

Social media enabling abuse

The report highlights how weak regulation and enforcement by global social media companies is enabling these smear campaigns.

Most attacks documented in the report occurred after companies such as Meta and X rolled back key fact-checking and safety measures. Those decisions faced wide criticism for exacerbating disinformation and human rights harms.

Global Witness argues these social media companies are failing to enforce their own rules prohibiting harassment, hate speech and incitement to violence.

The report underscores how the criminalisation of land and environmental defenders increasingly begins online, where coordinated harassment and disinformation sets the stage for more traditional forms of repression.

Garate added:

We tend to think of criminalisation as something decided by a politician or judge. But increasingly, the social and ideological groundwork is laid online, on the very platforms we use every day.

These tactics weaponise stigma, fear and social isolation to strip defenders of their legitimacy, eroding their reputations with the public and within their own communities.

When these narratives take hold in digital spaces, defenders can lose long before they see a courtroom.

What is happening to defenders in Guatemala is a profound threat to democracy and human rights – and an indictment on Big Tech’s failure to act.

Global Witness says social media companies must be accountable for their failure to enforce their own anti-harassment policies.

Stronger platform governance, combined with broader accountability measures, is essential to weakening the grip of corrupt actors over Guatemala’s justice system and creating safer conditions for defenders of democracy, the environment, and human rights to carry out their vital work.

Featured image via Rafael Gonzalez / Global Witness