One in seven of Milei’s posts are insults, says press watchdog

A special report published by the Foro de Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA) press watchdog has found that 15.2 percent of the posts made by President Javier Milei on the X social network include insulting or offensive language.

The FOPEA study, titled ‘Insult as strategy: An analysis of 113,000 tweets of President Milei,’ was produced by the Data Journalism Visualization (DJV) Bootcamp. It analysed 113,649 posts published by Milei on X between December 10, 2023, when he took office, and September 15, 2025.

According to the report, 16,806 of those posts contained insults or affronts.

On average, Argentina’s President publishes 406 posts a day, including original posts and retweets. On a typical day, around 60 include insulting or stigmatising expressions – meaning roughly one out of every seven of Milei’s publications uses offensive language.

The most frequent derogatory terms identified were “kuka” (a slur combining “cockroach” with a reference to Kirchnerism), “casta” (caste), “delincuente” (delinquent or criminal), “mandril” (mandrill), “degenerado” (degenerate) and “terrorista” (terrorist), among others.

“The emergence of Javier Milei in the public arena, first as a television panellist and opinion leader and later as a lawmaker and president, marked the beginning of a form of communication marked by insults towards those who think differently,” the report states.

FOPEA concluded that the President “has only partially kept his promise to tone down aggression” in his public discourse, a pledge he made in a speech last August.

“The peaks in the use of insults coincided with key economic announcements, showing how conflict and aggression function as tools for viralisation,” the authors wrote.

They added: “When insult becomes a strategy and the algorithm rewards it, public debate is degraded, self-censorship grows and voices are silenced. Freedom of expression is not lost all at once, but eroded post by post.”

According to the analysis, journalism is one of the main targets of Milei’s sustained attacks on social media.

The insults were grouped into three linguistic patterns: animalisation – such as “mandril,” “burro” (donkey), “domado” (tame), “rata” (rat) and “parásito” (parasite); repulsion — including “excremento,” “inmundicia” (filth), “basura” (rubbish) and “putrefacto” (rotten); and sexualisation, such as “envaselinados” (a sexualised insult implying humiliation or submission).

Milei has previously referred to journalists as “criminals with microphones” and regularly brands them as “corrupt” in public appearances.

“The President’s aggression not only affects journalists but also puts a fundamental principle of democracy at risk: freedom of expression and access to independent information,” FOPEA said.

Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni and presidential spokesman Javier Lanari were consulted for comment but did not respond.

Adorni, who previously served as Milei’s spokesperson, has said in the past that the President is “a very respectful person who defends freedom of expression like no one else.”

Milei’s outbursts on social media, Adorni has argued, are a way of establishing “direct communication with the people,” bypassing traditional media outlets.

– TIMES/NA