2023-08-25 05:05:34
In the middle of the electoral season, between August 13 and 21, 2023, a massive attack on the media was unleashed on social networks to discredit the complaints, investigations and political control carried out by journalists. Hashtags like #CaracolMiente, #SemanaMiente, #ElCololombianoMiente, #RCNMiente and #ElTiempoMiente were trending for almost a week on Twitter or X and even reached Tik Tok, Instagram and VK, which is the Russian Facebook.
Using Social Listening tools—the same ones used by political strategists to profile users—we tracked mentions of these hashtags, detecting 3,107,200 mentions between August 13 and August 21. When filtering these mentions by geographical location, it is found that 1,022,200 left Colombia, that is to say that more than half were made outside the country, where the majority are bot accounts, recently created in August and which seem to have the coordination of various influencers. of the Historical Pact.
PARENTHESIS:
How are these data obtained?
The extraction of the data presented in this article was done through the Application Programming Interface (API) of social networks, which deliver public information from users such as photos, tweets, statuses, posts, comments, location and images. These permissions are obtained because the users accept the terms and conditions. The API is a credential that gives access to the bulk download of tweets related to a hashtag.
That more than half of the accounts that dealt with the issue appear to be posting from other countries is proof that this is a bot-led strategy. However, this does not mean that the activity comes from abroad, in most cases this change of location occurs through a VPN technology that allows you to change the location of the device (computer, cell phone or tablet) from which it is being sent. publish.
Where are the rest of the mentions from? They are distributed in a list of 82 countries where the attack on Caracol is the majority. Except in Tanzania, where the hashtag #SemanaMiente had 200 mentions, followed by Malaysia with 100 mentions.
Caracol was the most attacked medium with 1,658,000 mentions that made it a trend for almost three days. 846,300 accounts that tweeted negatively once morest the medium were tracked. Although Twitter was the majority, there are 300 mentions in comments on Youtube videos, there are also Tik Tok videos with 200 tags, on Instagram there are 100 and on VK (the Russian Facebook) there are 100. 79% of these accounts are assigned as male users, 19% female and 1% do not specify.
Apart from the main countries where there is a Colombian population such as the United States, Spain or Mexico, there are mentions in accounts from Angola, with 2,000; Russia with 1,800, Vietnam with 1,800, Lithuania with 1,100. Having a greater number of mentions than Spanish-speaking countries that are neighbors of Colombia such as Uruguay, with 700, Nicaragua with 700 and even Vatican City with 600, the same number as the Dominican Republic.
These accounts are automated to replicate the content, in this way they can have automatic responses with the sole purpose of reaching different audiences and disseminating the smear message with which some sectors want to stain the media. The programming of these bots shows that the purpose is for their “content” to reach users who usually search for topics related to law, soccer, technology, education, family, politics and the economy.
In second place with #SemanaMiente there were attacks 762,200 mentions on Twitter, 200 comments on YouTube and on Tik Tok there were 100 tags. 510,000 accounts were tracked that used the aforementioned hashtags and to which this time #VickyMiente was added. RCN and El Tiempo also suffered attacks with 581,800 and 84,300 mentions respectively.
Lastly, El Colombiano was attacked with 20,900 mentions and 19,300 authors on Twitter. Of these accounts, only 10,000 are registered in Colombia, the rest are distributed in countries like the United States and even Ukraine. Likewise, although the mentions of the last week were tracked, by expanding the chronology, it was detected that accounts outside of Colombia began the attacks with one or two mentions occasionally.
In other words, this coordinated attack that began on August 13 and ended on August 21, and which sought to discredit any investigation or criticism that there is of the government, had a complete warehouse behavior: it was not citizens who were behind it, but computer programs .
One of the first accounts that started this attack on Twitter is called @EjeNaranja (Movimiento Naranja Eje Cafetero), which since July of this year questioned Semana Magazine for a headline. In addition, one of the first to chirp attacking Caracol Noticias was the influencer, activist of the Historical Pact and who had a contract with Colombia Compra Eficiente, Daniela Beltrán, well known as Lalis (@smilelalis), also raised the tide @frannito1, according to launches the YouScan tool.
While Franito’s tweet reached 855 accounts saying #CaracolMiente #GrupoAvalCorrupto, Daniela Beltrán’s tweet —said: “The thing regarding @NoticiasCaracol is incredible, they lie blatantly, they invent places and names @petrogustavo asks that they rectify the information and they don’t . But they come out to say that the president attacks the press, THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE!!!” — reached 146,000 views, 6,000 likes, and 1,500 responses.
The thing is that 6 minutes later, as if it were a matter of flipping a switch, another winery account uploaded a tweet saying “Fake of all falsehood. #CaracolMiente, as has always been the custom”, to which he added an image in the middle with a huge logo with the word “False”. Since then everything began to grow.
How do influencers operate to attack?
The accounts of influencers of the Historical Pact such as Daniel Rozo (@Donizquierdo) or Daniela Beltrán (@smilelalis), or those of politicians such as Piedad Córdoba and Wilson Arias and Alejo Vergel did not make more than 4 or 5 tweets regarding this controversy, and this It is because its reach is massive, since it gathers more than 700,000 readers. The one who has the greatest reach is “Don Izquierdo” with more than 273,000 followers reading his attack tweets. This is important here, since accounts of this type are the ones that lead and legitimize these attacks, especially when it comes from people who hold public office in Congress.
The few tweets of the most famous are in contrast to activities such as that of the @Cmloandrs account, which belongs to engineer Camilo Espinosa, and from where the media was attacked the most with 124 tweets. The second account is one that profiles other accounts that claim to be “progressive.”
One of the subtleties of these bot accounts, beyond those that do respond to patterns of real users, is that they show a purely electoral behavior, because in addition to attacking the media and joining the fights that often come from the Historical Pact They also advertise candidates like Gustavo Bolívar, from Bogotá, and Juan Carlos Upequi, one of Daniel Quintero’s files for the Medellín mayor’s office.
What is the purpose of these attacks?
Using bots, trolls, spamming, misinformation, false reviews, , cyber attacks is part of a strategy called Coordinated Influence Operations, and its purpose is “organizing attempt to achieve a specific effect among a target audience,” according to the Fund. Carnegie for International Peace.
The attack on the main media was not a hasty response for delaying the investigations and complaints regarding the entry of hot money into the campaign of the Historical Pact. The attack was coordinated, everything seems to indicate that it was prepared, as a kind of counterattack once morest journalistic investigations.
Justo EL COLOMBIANO published on Sunday, August 20, that the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, relies on bots to show that his proposals have support on social networks; In this way, he amplifies his stories regarding the city, his view of public problems and what some analysts call post-truth.
And it is that several scanning tools reflected that more than 63 percent of the followers that Quintero has seem like bots or are inactive. And among that great cloud, just over 1 percent are real people who lead a digital life on social networks.
The issue is relevant because 50 percent of the followers that Daniel Quintero has, those followers who are certainly bots and who replicate his content, also appear on the account of President Gustavo Petro. Surely they would appear in a dozen politicians of all political currents. We are witnessing the democracy of robots, where the supposed opinion in networks seems to be the reflection of a mirror that in reality does not say anything or, worse, tells lies.
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