The president of the Legislative Assembly, Ernesto Castro, said on Monday that “all youtubers and content generators” will be able to “cover” the sessions of this State body starting this Tuesday.
“Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, ALL YOUTUBERS and content generators on social networks are invited to the @AsambleaSV (Legislative Assembly), to cover the ordinary and extraordinary plenary sessions,” Castro posted on Twitter.
He added that, in his opinion, “in this way, they will be able to directly inform our population, both those who live here in our country and our brothers in the diaspora.”
Youtubers and content generators would lack journalistic preparation, or profession, or a medium that supports any material uploaded to the networks and could generate information irresponsibly.
The press union in the country has denounced that the Legislative Assembly, with a broad pro-government majority, has approved “gag reforms” or that give rise to the “criminalization of journalistic work.”
According to figures from the Aggression Monitoring Center of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), in 2022 there were 24 cases of violations of the press attributed to officials and in 13 of the cases those indicated are deputies.
In August 2022, the YouTuber Roberto Silva was sent to trial for accusations of expressions of violence against women and other charges.
These allegedly occurred in the framework of the 2021 legislative elections, where Silva would have been accredited as a journalist by a government outlet.
Recently, the cartoonist “Wales Cartoon” made and uploaded to social networks a cartoon against the opposition deputy Marcela Villatoro, where he would have committed the crime of violence against women, by rudely mocking the deputy, in an offensive drawing for any woman.