4. Country Analysis: El Salvador

4.1 Political and Legal System

El Salvador's regulatory and political framework is grounded in its Constitution of the Republic of 1983 which, in Article 1, expressly recognizes the human person as the origin and supreme purpose of all State activity, organized to achieve justice, legal security, and the common good. Article 85 of the Constitution defines the country as a sovereign State and explicitly establishes its form of government as republican, democratic, and representative. The Salvadoran political system is pluralist and has legally evolved toward greater democratic openness, through regulations such as the Provisions for the Nomination of Non-Partisan Candidacies (Decree 555),⁴⁰ which recognized citizens' right to run for legislative office independently, strengthening the free, direct, equal, and secret suffrage enshrined in Article 78 of the Constitution. At the constitutional level, the exercise of public power is delegated to three fundamental branches that operate under a strict principle of non-delegation and mutual collaboration: the Legislative Branch, exercised by a unicameral Legislative Assembly with the power to enact laws and elect second-degree officials; the Executive Branch, headed by the Presidency of the Republic; and the Judicial Branch, whose highest authority is the Supreme Court of Justice. Within the latter, the Constitutional Chamber plays a central role as the highest and final interpreter of the Constitution, resolving disputes and safeguarding fundamental rights through unconstitutionality, amparo, and habeas corpus proceedings (including Habeas Data for the protection of personal information). In the political-electoral sphere, the highest administrative and jurisdictional authority is the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, TSE), responsible for calling, organizing, directing, and supervising all elections, acting as the definitive arbiter in electoral disputes and in overseeing political parties. The Salvadoran electoral system is currently undergoing a phase of profound technological and demographic transformation driven by the recent Special Law for the Exercise of Suffrage Abroad (Decree 541 of 2022),⁴¹ which integrated the large Salvadoran diaspora into the democratic process through the pioneering introduction of remote internet-based electronic voting and in-person electronic voting. Beyond the three traditional branches, the institutional design of the Salvadoran State also includes a Public Ministry made up of the Attorney General's Office (Fiscalía General de la República), the Office of the Solicitor General (Procuraduría General de la República), and the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office (Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, PDDH). This last body holds the constitutional mandate to safeguard citizens' fundamental guarantees against possible abuses or omissions by public authorities, acting as a moral and institutional watchdog.

4.2 Freedom of Expression and Human Rights

Civil and political rights find their primary basis in Article 6 of the Constitution, which categorically guarantees that every person may freely express and disseminate their thoughts through any medium, without prior censorship. This freedom, however, has legitimate constitutional limits when its exercise undermines public order or harms the morals, honor, or private life of third parties — legal interests expressly protected under Article 2. Article 24, for its part, enshrines the inviolability of postal correspondence and the unbreakable secrecy of telecommunications, establishing that any interception may only be carried out exceptionally and strictly by means of a reasoned judicial order. In addition, Article 18 recognizes citizens' right to petition before any constituted authority. Despite the strength of these formal guarantees, the full and safe exercise of freedom of expression has faced its most serious and systematic challenges since the signing of the Peace Accords. In 2024, Reporters Without Borders ranked El Salvador at an alarming 133rd out of 180 countries.⁴² This sharp decline has been compounded by the uninterrupted State of Exception in force since March 2022, which de facto suspends vital constitutional guarantees (including the inviolability of telecommunications and the right to a defense), creating an environment of heightened vulnerability for citizens. In this climate of exceptionality, criminal law reforms were passed — dubbed a “Gag Law” (Ley Bozal) by the press — imposing severe prison sentences of up to fifteen years on anyone who reproduces or transmits messages originating from gangs through media outlets or digital platforms.⁴³ This produced an immediate chilling effect, forcing the media into self-censorship, although this conduct was decriminalized in 2023.⁴⁴ Digital security and privacy have become matters of grave concern. Multiple international investigations have documented the covert use of military-grade spyware (such as Pegasus) to compromise the devices of investigative journalists, activists, and opposition figures.⁴⁵ Added to this technical surveillance is the proliferation of online disinformation campaigns, with evidence of the systematic operation of fake-account armies and troll farms in the country.⁴⁶

4.3 Digital Environment

El Salvador shows continuous growth in its connectivity indicators at the macroeconomic level. Underlying this, however, is a structural digital divide that chronically marginalizes rural areas and lower-income segments. Mobile connectivity via phones has become the primary means of internet access for most of the population, in a context where fixed-line access remains a minority. According to recent reports on the country's digital ecosystem, there are around 11 million mobile connections in a country of just over 6 million inhabitants,⁴⁷ translating into penetration levels of around 170% due to the widespread use of multiple SIM cards per person.⁴⁸ At the same time, fixed broadband internet subscriptions barely exceed a few hundred thousand, confirming that the mobile phone is the only internet connection channel for large segments of society.⁴⁹ El Salvador has built a narrative of financial and technological vanguard based on its adoption of Bitcoin⁵⁰ as legal tender and the launch of a state-run digital wallet called ChivoWallet.⁵¹ The reality, however, is more nuanced: although mobile and fixed download speeds have improved in recent years, El Salvador continues to lag behind other countries in the region, with a persistent gap between broadband penetration and mobile-line penetration, suggesting that the cryptocurrency push has not been matched by investment in network infrastructure. El Salvador's telecommunications market has a highly concentrated structure, with two major transnational operators, Tigo and Claro, holding dominant positions in mobile telephony and consumer internet access.⁵³ Sector statistics show that these two providers account for the bulk of mobile lines and broadband subscriptions, while the rest of the market is split among smaller players.⁵⁴ The commercial model is based primarily on prepaid plans, with around 90% of mobile lines offered under this modality, with top-ups being the predominant mechanism for data access and consumption. In February 2024, the Salvadoran government granted the satellite internet company Starlink a 10-year concession for satellite internet frequencies, allowing the company to offer this service commercially.⁵⁵ In this context, operators have recurrently rolled out mobile data plans under zero-rating or differentiated-cost schemes that include access to apps, especially Meta's (Facebook or WhatsApp), aimed mainly at prepaid users. This allows these platforms to be used without the traffic counting against the general data allowance, at the cost of making the open internet more expensive to access. These practices have been flagged as de facto violations of net neutrality principles, limiting people's ability to access the open internet and to cross-check information across diverse sources.⁵⁷

4.4 Digital Platforms Available in the Country

In 2025, El Salvador recorded approximately 3.90 million active social media users, equivalent to more than 61% of the total population and more than 87% of the population over 18. These figures show a consolidation of the digital environment compared to 2023 data, when 4 million active users were reported, made up demographically of 51.9% women and 48.1% men.⁵⁸ In terms of platform reach, the Meta ecosystem and video platforms concentrate most of the audience. For 2025, Facebook reports around 4.05 million potential users reachable through advertising, an increase from the 3.6 million reach reported in 2023. Instagram, for its part, has close to 1.8 million users, and Messenger maintains a significant presence in daily communication. In the audiovisual format, YouTube reaches 3.5 million Salvadorans,⁵⁸ holding steady compared to previous years, while TikTok is registering exponential growth and high penetration, especially among younger demographic segments.⁵⁹ The concentration of information consumption on a few platforms shapes the population's digital habits in a context where internet access is primarily through mobile devices. Social networks operate not only as spaces for entertainment or personal interaction but also shape how Salvadorans access news and engage in political debate. Additionally, these apps are essential to the country's economic activity, serving as the main channels for advertising campaigns, informal commerce, and online transactions.⁶⁰

4.5 Legislative and Regulatory Context in El Salvador

4.5.1 Constitutional Framework

Article 6 of El Salvador’s Constitution enshrines the inalienable right of every person to freely express and disseminate their thoughts. This provision, by protecting the expression of thought “through any medium” and expressly prohibiting prior censorship, applies a principle of technological neutrality that automatically covers expressions made on the internet, digital platforms, and social networks. However, the Constitution itself acknowledges that this right is not absolute. Articles 2 and 24 serve as the necessary constitutional limits against possible abuses or disproportionate interventions. Article 2 protects the right to honor, personal and family privacy, and one’s own image, guarding against harmful conduct such as defamation or cyberbullying. Article 24 shields citizens’ privacy by guaranteeing the strict inviolability of correspondence and prohibiting interference with telecommunications. This provision determines that any interception of electronic or telematic communications may only occur exceptionally, temporarily, and under a duly reasoned judicial order directed exclusively toward the investigation of serious crimes.

In the absence of a general data protection law, the consolidated jurisprudence of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice has assumed a prominent guardianship role. This highest court has interpreted the protective provisions of Article 2 in an expansive, rights-oriented manner to recognize and operationalize the right to informational self-determination through the figure of Habeas Data. Through this judicial protection mechanism, Salvadoran citizens have been granted the constitutional power to control their personal and sensitive information when it is stored, profiled, or processed in databases, regardless of whether they are administered by public institutions or by private corporations and large technology platforms.

Finally, this set of civil and privacy rights is complemented by the constitutional mandates on economic order and social welfare (Articles 101 and 102). These provisions oblige the State to promote economic and technological development and to actively defend consumers’ interests. This constitutional basis has legitimized the creation of secondary regulations applicable to the online environment — such as e-commerce and consumer protection laws — to combat misleading advertising and regulate abusive clauses in platforms’ “Terms and Conditions.”

In this way, the Salvadoran constitutional framework not only protects users in their communicative dimension but also imposes on the State the duty to create the conditions of legal certainty necessary for equitable digital coexistence. That said, concerns exist that El Salvador has configured a restrictive digital environment. Stigmatization campaigns driven by troll farms can discredit the work of independent press and civil society organizations, but they can also generate a paralyzing effect among citizens, who increasingly opt for self-censorship on platforms out of fear of legal reprisals, detentions under the state of exception, or virtual mob attacks.

The digital infrastructure context itself — based primarily on prepaid mobile access and zero-rating schemes — does not help the situation, as it raises doubts about the effective guarantee of the right to information. In this way, El Salvador’s internet ecosystem, which constitutionally should function as a plural and safe extension of the public sphere, suffers from a power asymmetry that makes it particularly vulnerable to digital intimidation at the expense of freedom of expression.

4.5.2 Telecommunications and Media Legislation

The regulatory framework governing connectivity infrastructure and communications in El Salvador is anchored in the Telecommunications Law (Legislative Decree 142 of 1997).⁶¹ This legislation delegates to the General Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications (SIGET) the technical and institutional authority for the administration, regulation, and granting of concessions over the radio spectrum, considered a State resource. This law, from the final years of the last century, prioritizes technical regulation, frequency management, and the promotion of market competition under SIGET’s administrative oversight.

It lacks provisions that regulate and guarantee net neutrality, transparent data traffic management, or the liability regime for internet intermediaries and digital platforms. A historically notable control element with political impact is Article 127 of this law, which unconditionally requires all radio frequency licensees to simultaneously broadcast “national chains” when convened by the Presidency of the Republic, under penalty of severe fines for non-compliance — thereby perpetuating and legalizing the Executive Branch’s monopolistic control over mass information during conjunctural situations.

Beyond frequency management for traditional radio and television, this law laid the groundwork for opening telecommunications data transmission services to free competition, regulating network interconnection and access to essential resources. In the digital era, SIGET’s regulatory role is relevant, as its operational and technical regulations on telecommunications infrastructure directly impact the quality, coverage, and accessibility of internet services for the Salvadoran population.

Regarding telecommunications, media, and press legislation, the country is governed primarily by the Telecommunications Law (Legislative Decree 142 of 1997). In the sphere of public scrutiny and the relationship between the State and society, the Law on Access to Public Information (Legislative Decree 534 of 2011)⁶² formally recognizes that the right to freedom of expression encompasses the inalienable right to seek, receive, and disseminate information without consideration of borders and through any medium, including expressly the electronic channel.

To implement this mandate, the law establishes the principle of “maximum publicity,” obligating all state institutions and municipalities to proactively publish information on official websites and transparency portals. The Institute for Access to Public Information (IAIP) is the body guaranteeing citizens’ right to know. It operationalizes these mandates under Decree 534 of 2011, following the premise that transparency is a basic condition for civic participation. The IAIP is charged with ensuring that all persons can seek, receive, and disseminate information derived from governmental management, overseeing accountability and the protection of confidential personal data held by the public administration.

However, despite the doctrinal robustness of these guarantees, Legislative Decree No. 333 (which declares the State of Exception in El Salvador)⁶³ suspends Articles 7 and 24 of the Salvadoran Constitution. This severely affects journalistic work and freedom of expression by suspending the inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications (Art. 24), as well as freedom of association (Art. 7). By allowing the State to intercept and examine private communications without requiring a prior, reasoned judicial order, it destroys the confidentiality of communications and violates professional secrecy, preventing journalists from protecting the identity of their sources. This unrestricted surveillance, combined with the suspension of the right to technical defense and the extension of administrative detention to 15 days (Arts. 12 and 13), places journalists and critical voices in a situation of defenselessness that also generates a climate of civic vulnerability in both physical and digital spaces.

In this context of exceptionality, criminal law reforms such as the so-called “Ley Bozal” — which threatened up to fifteen years of imprisonment for anyone reproducing gang messages on digital platforms or traditional media — triggered a profound chilling effect and forced widespread self-censorship across the information ecosystem. This structural coercion’s paralyzing effects persist even though the dissemination of such messages was decriminalized in 2023.

In the digital sphere, the suspension of Article 24 de facto legitimizes mass and arbitrary state surveillance over cyberspace. By eliminating the constitutional protection of telecommunications, the government is empowered to intervene in emails, instant messaging applications, data traffic, and social media profiles without judicial supervision. This results in a severely negative impact on online freedom of expression, as it creates a hyper-surveillance environment in which citizens assume that their digital footprint and political opinions on the internet are constantly being monitored.

4.5.3 Specific Regulation on Platforms and/or Content Regulation

El Salvador does not possess a unique, exhaustive digital code, nor a modern law that classifies and regulates social media platforms as information intermediaries. In the absence of such legislation, the existing applicable regulatory framework operates through different legal instruments. In the sphere of civil and commercial law, regulation is addressed tangentially through laws such as the Electronic Signature Law (Legislative Decree 133)⁶⁴ and the E-Commerce Law (Legislative Decree 463).⁶⁵ These instruments provide the necessary architecture to legally validate transactions, online contracts, and data messages, enabling commercial development and secure interactions in the digital environment.

In the punitive sphere, the control of online threats falls to the Special Law against Computer Crimes and Related Offenses, approved by Legislative Decree 260 in 2016.⁶⁶ This regulation constitutes the State’s main tool for classifying and punishing illicit conduct such as computer fraud, unauthorized system access, sabotage, and the obtaining or transfer of confidential information. To counterbalance the asymmetry between technology companies and citizens, the State relies subsidiarily on the Consumer Protection Law.⁶⁷ This law applies to virtual environments as it prohibits misleading advertising and strictly regulates adhesion contracts — the legal form under which digital platforms’ “Terms and Conditions” operate. Through this law, abusive clauses seeking to exempt service providers from liability or imposing arbitrary waivers of users’ rights are declared null and void, providing a basic layer of legal protection against corporate abuses.

Salvadoran law does not provide for a liability exemption scheme for platforms regarding content uploaded or shared by their users. In the absence of a precise delineation of the civil or criminal liability of internet service providers for illegal or harmful third-party publications, content moderation operates in a legal vacuum. There are also no transparency policies or appeal and due process mechanisms from technology platforms.

However, any analysis of platform governance and digital content creation in El Salvador must be situated in the context of the current State of Exception, which has drastically altered the rules of the digital ecosystem by suspending constitutional guarantees — in particular the secrecy of telecommunications (Art. 24 of the Constitution) — and which continues to be extended over time.⁶⁸

The State of Exception, having now persisted for an extended period, de facto legalizes unrestricted state surveillance, allowing authorities to intercept electronic communications, private messaging, and data traffic on social networks without prior judicial oversight. This annulment of digital privacy, combined with the non-existence of a General Personal Data Protection Law, places platform users in a situation of absolute defenselessness before the state apparatus.

The direct result of this state of exception regime is self-censorship born of the well-founded fear that political opinions, social media interactions, or shared content could be used to justify arbitrary administrative detentions. This situation poses serious governmental barriers to the internet functioning as a free space for democratic debate in the country.

4.5.4 Data Protection and Privacy Legislation

El Salvador’s data protection and privacy legislation faces a structural vacuum. To date, the country lacks a personal data protection law binding on the private sector, as well as a dedicated national technical and specialized authority in this area. In the absence of such legislation, the control and protection of citizens’ information operates in a highly fragmented manner.

Protection, as in other countries lacking specific legislation, rests primarily on Habeas Data constitutional jurisprudence. In the sphere of government administration, the aforementioned Law on Access to Public Information (Legislative Decree 534) assumes guardianship of “confidential personal data,” but its scope is strictly limited, as the IAIP only has jurisdiction and sanctioning capacity over information held by state agencies and institutions.

In an effort to compensate for the lack of regulation on mass data processing by corporate actors and technology platforms, the State must resort to sectoral tools. The aforementioned Consumer Protection Law functions as a legal brake against the commodification of privacy. This legislation seeks to sanction the abusive transfer and unauthorized commercialization of commercial, credit, or consumption personal data by companies. Although it provides users with a basic legal defense tool against the exploitation of their information in the goods and services market, it is an insufficient measure to address the complexity of algorithmic profiling and the mass collection of metadata inherent to the modern digital ecosystem.

Finally, in the sensitive sphere of investigative privacy and surveillance, the country is governed by the Special Law for Telecommunications Interception (Legislative Decree 285).⁶⁹ This regulation operationalizes the constitutional exception by allowing the interception of electronic and telematic communications for the prosecution of serious crimes, centralizing technical wiretapping protocols under strict subordination to a mandate issued by a specialized judge.

However, despite a legal design that appears rights-protective on paper, operating practice demonstrates a diametrically opposite reality. International organizations have repeatedly warned about the lack of sufficient independent technical controls to audit the use of communications interception systems,⁷⁰ which has led to serious and repeated violations of privacy. Internationally documented reports on the use of technological spyware against political actors, human rights defenders, and journalists demonstrate the concerning fragility of state safeguards and the imminent risk that these tools may be used for political persecution purposes.⁷¹

4.5.5 Specific Regulation for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups

The protection of vulnerable populations in the Salvadoran digital ecosystem is structured through an approach that combines preventive mandates and criminal prosecution. In the preventive sphere, the Crecer Juntos Law for the Comprehensive Protection of Early Childhood, Children, and Adolescents⁷² incorporates modern guidelines aimed at safeguarding minors from access to and exposure to online content of a violent, sexual, or developmentally harmful nature.

In a complementary and reactive manner, strict legal protection falls to the Special Law against Computer Crimes and Related Offenses (Legislative Decree 260 of 2016).⁷³ This regulation devotes a specific chapter to cybercrime against children, adolescents, and persons with disabilities (Articles 24 through 27), penalizing with prison sentences conduct such as the distribution and possession of child pornography, sexual extortion through information technologies, and the use of minors for the production or dissemination of explicit material through any digital device.

On the other hand, in the sphere of combating gender-based violence in virtual environments, various criminal law reforms introduced by the Legislative Assembly have succeeded in independently classifying contemporary digital aggressions. This has made it possible to penalize conduct such as the non-consensual dissemination of intimate visual material (“revenge porn”), electronic sexual extortion, and cyberbullying.

However, despite the existence of this catalogue of sanctions, the administration of justice faces obstacles. Limitations in digital forensic investigation, technical barriers to identifying aggressors operating anonymously on transnational platforms, and challenges in the speed of judicial prosecution significantly undermine the effectiveness of these laws.

4.5.6 Digital Electoral Regulation

In the sphere of electoral regulation, the governing rules for campaigns, financing, and propaganda in El Salvador are contained primarily in the Electoral Code⁷⁴ and the Political Parties Law.⁷⁵ Historically, this regulatory framework was designed to oversee analog processes and advertising placed on traditional mass media (television, radio, and print).

However, faced with the migration of political debate to the virtual ecosystem, this regulatory body now shows structural lag. El Salvador lacks specific regulations classifying modern cyber-electoral offenses or obligating technology corporations and social media platforms to cooperate with the electoral authority in controlling paid political advertising, content targeting, or the use of political bots. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) does not have the necessary legal tools or digital infrastructure to effectively audit the digital spending of parties and candidates or to monitor algorithmic micro-targeting practices during electoral campaigns.

This lack of legal modernization aggravates the vulnerability of the democratic process to algorithmic manipulation tactics. In the absence of a legal framework that gives the TSE the authority to intervene in the digital environment, the country is exposed to cybernetic phenomena that threaten electoral integrity — such as the massive use of bots to create artificial trending topics, the viral spread of disinformation to suppress the vote of specific communities, or paid micro-targeted advertising campaigns that circumvent campaign finance disclosure limits.

Paradoxically, while the regulation of online political discourse remains stalled, voting infrastructure underwent important changes. With the passage of the Special Law for the Exercise of Suffrage Abroad (Legislative Decree 541 of 2022), a pioneering remote electronic voting system via the internet was established for the Salvadoran diaspora, allowing Salvadorans living abroad to exercise their right to vote from their country of residence. This technological innovation, while representing a significant democratic advance in terms of inclusion and participation, introduces new challenges in cybersecurity, identity verification, and the prevention of electoral fraud in the digital environment.

4.6 Alignment with UNESCO Guidelines: El Salvador

The analysis of El Salvador’s normative and institutional framework, contrasted with the UNESCO Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms, reveals a structural and practical lack of alignment. While the Constitution establishes a rights-guaranteeing framework — protecting freedom of expression with technological neutrality (Art. 6) and enshrining the inviolability of communications (Art. 24) — the country’s operational reality diverges sharply from the human rights-based, transparency-oriented, and due-diligence approach promoted by the international system.

In practice, El Salvador’s digital ecosystem operates under critical legal vacuums and a political environment that prioritizes punitive control over multistakeholder governance.

Regarding freedom of expression and the protection of civic space, the Salvadoran framework clashes directly with the “high threshold” required by UNESCO, under which restrictions must be exceptional, lawful, necessary, and proportionate. This principle has been severely violated by the imposition of an uninterrupted State of Exception since March 2022, which de facto suspends the inviolability of telecommunications and legalizes unrestricted state surveillance. This is compounded by documented use of military spyware (such as Pegasus) against the press, and the promotion of criminal law reforms like the so-called “Ley Bozal,” which, though subsequently decriminalized, established a climate of persecution. This combination, together with the systematic operation of troll farms to stigmatize critical voices, generates a profound chilling effect and fosters self-censorship, destroying the safe public debate environment that UNESCO seeks to protect.

Regarding the specific governance of digital platforms, El Salvador lacks a “safe harbor” or conditional liability regime for internet intermediaries. In the absence of a modern law defining the role of technology corporations, there are no legal incentives or obligations for social networks to establish transparent content moderation policies, assess their systemic risks, or provide due process mechanisms for users. To fill this gap, the State resorts to punitive tools such as the Special Law against Computer Crimes, or applies the Consumer Protection Law subsidiarily to abusive Terms and Conditions, bypassing the need for a comprehensive digital co-regulation system.

Data protection and privacy represent another critical point of misalignment. El Salvador suffers from a deep structural vacuum, lacking a General Personal Data Protection Law applicable to the private sector and an independent national authority in this area. Protection falls, in a fragmented manner, to the Institute for Access to Public Information (covering only state data) or to case law, leaving citizens defenseless against mass data collection and commercial algorithmic profiling. Furthermore, practices in the telecommunications market — heavily anchored in prepaid plans with zero-rating schemes (data-free access to certain networks such as Facebook or WhatsApp) — undermine the principle of net neutrality, trapping users in information bubbles that restrict access to the open web and facilitate the spread of disinformation.

Finally, in the realm of democratic integrity, the country presents an asymmetry. On one hand, it made an avant-garde technological leap by enabling remote electronic voting via the internet for its diaspora through the Special Law for the Exercise of Suffrage Abroad (2022). On the other hand, it suffers from a legislative lag in regulating digital campaigning. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) lacks the authority and legal basis to audit opaque financing of micro-targeted advertising, investigate the use of bots, or curb coordinated disinformation operations aimed at voter suppression. Taken together, El Salvador faces the challenge of transitioning from a model of surveillance and corporate deregulation toward a comprehensive digital governance framework that demands accountability from platforms and restores the constitutional guarantees of the information ecosystem.