For the 2021 elections, Ecuadorian political organizations, despite not being legally considered election propaganda, have opted for online social networks, largely crowding out other traditional media. In 2022, he joined social networks.

The National Electoral Council has set a cap on presidential election expenses for 2023 at $5,380,018. 50% political organization, 10% candidate and 5% contributor. The election campaign fund, established in Art. 115 of the Constitution, gives 15% to political parties, for media, press, radio, television and posters, whereby election advertising belongs exclusively to political organizations. Individuals or legal entities cannot register individually, and if they do, they must register with the CNE.

The Election Spending Regulation aims to avoid cases of corruption by checking the origin, use and amount of funds used in propaganda. It obliges candidates and organizations to present the costs of advertising on social networks. It does not consider regulating the percentage allocated to them, nor does it regulate the promotion and dissemination of content on social networks.

According to a study conducted on Twitter and Instagram spending, in 2021, in the second round only, two major organizations used the equivalent of 50% of the election spending limit: one with 68% and the other with 55% (FARO Group Org.) and estimates that for the current presidential election, adding the social network TikTok, political organizations will exceed those percentages.

According to the IDB, “…research reveals that people are more susceptible to misinformation when trust in the political system is low and political polarization is high…”. As a result, in Ecuador, the electoral struggle has no boundaries on social networks. They produce fake news, viral posts, provocative language and profanity, which have become synonymous with the use of social media in elections. Biased polls, humiliating ‘memes’, troll armies, specialists who reciprocally manipulate the election message and contaminate it with hate speech, hidden under the mask of anonymity, unaware of the imperative of electoral silence.

In Latinobarómetro polls, the share of those who believe that social networks do not serve democracy has increased from 30% in 2015 to 40% in 2020. Posts on them, even if they are true, usually cause emotions of anger in their recipients, fear, mistrust

The right to freedom of expression, even on networks, since it is not absolute, can be limited to the extent that other rights are protected (Constitutional Court, judgment 785-20-JP/22). However, the president of the State Electoral Council in recent days, contradictorily, declared her inability to control and audit election spending on social networks in accordance, without referring to her, with another lenient judgment of the same Court. (OR)