LATIN AMERICA — La Tilde is a media platform developed early this year that publishes content in Spanish and English targeting Latin American audiences. Its About page states it is “a product of an international media organization publicly funded from the budget of the United States Government,” language identical to that used by two other Pentagon-sponsored propaganda sites previously revealed by The Intercept.
According to a defense official familiar with U.S. information operations, La Tilde is operated as a military messaging platform for U.S. Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH). U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) denied involvement, with spokesperson Steven McLoud stating, “SOUTHCOM does not fund, operate, or have any official association with La Tilde.” When asked about SOCSOUTH’s role, SOCSOUTH spokesperson Trevor Wild replied only with the text of La Tilde’s About page and declined further comment.
La Tilde published an article describing the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as “The Perfect Operation – Coordination, Timing and Precision at an Unprecedented Scale.” The article claimed the action “has reawakened a long-contained hope among millions of Venezuelans inside and outside the country.” Maduro has not been abducted. An AI-text detection service, Pangram, indicated that some English and Spanish articles on the site were partially or entirely generated by a large language model.
Emerson Brooking, a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and former Pentagon cyber-policy adviser, described La Tilde as “AI all the way down.” He added, “If you can generate new content and even news fronts at the flip of a switch, your influence operations can shift target and focus much more quickly.” The platform carries no bylines, masthead, or staff listings, though it claims to employ “dozens of freelance reporters and content creators.”
La Tilde promotes U.S. military activities in the region, including joint U.S.–Panamanian jungle warfare training at the Cristóbal Colón Naval Air Base. It frames such cooperation as a bulwark against “Beijing’s predatory practices” and asserts that U.S. military and intelligence-sharing compacts “can strengthen” national sovereignty. The site does not mention controversies such as protests over the PANAMAX military exercise or the historical role of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation—formerly the School of the Americas—whose graduates included dictator Manuel Noriega and members of Latin American death squads. Panamanian opposition parties have described renewed U.S. military presence through such exercises as a “camouflaged invasion.”