October 11, 2024, 7:00 AM
October 11, 2024, 7:00 AM
By ChequeaBolivia
In Zoom courses that last more than an hour and more than one session, digital warriors related to the Movement to Socialism (MAS) learn about political marketing, digital marketing, how to create fake accounts on Facebook, how to report profiles and even make memes to silence voices against the Government on social networks.
ChequeaBolivia analyzed 72 thousand messages from four WhatsApp groups and seven Telegram groups of “digital warriors” related to the MAS, where links to virtual classes recorded on Zoom and available on YouTube as private videos were found.
“Colleagues, so that you can remember the classes, I uploaded them in videos: doubts through this medium,” indicates the message that was sent through WhatsApp.
In these videos you can see participants and a speaker who hides his identity using an image of Anonymous, the pseudonym used to carry out cyber attacks. Class one is about political marketing on Facebook, where they learned how to carry out digital political campaigns. In addition, the warriors who participated already asked how many complaints they would be able to take down a Facebook account.
In class two, they learned about Facebook and Facebook Ads, in this class users are stressed about the importance of having a fake profile. “Your false profile is your arm of strength, the one that is going to exert force, to insult, to complain, to whatever,” indicates the person in charge of the class.
In class three, they teach them how to create fake profiles in a class called Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram, and Twitter. “You grab and if you don’t have cell phone numbers, at least Gmail accounts. “You can create about five Gmail accounts without being asked for your cell phone number,” says the “instructor.” It is even recommended to create profiles of women because “it is the best way to get followers.”
In the fourth class, on “learn to create videos and memes, YouTube, TikTok and e-commerce”, the tutor begins by teaching them applications to create memes.
In these tutorials, a digital warrior presents the screen of his cell phone and you can clearly see the management of his different fake accounts.
In addition to these classes, “mini-tutorials” were sent in which short videos teach how to report profiles on different social networks or skills on how to manage Facebook pages.
Create fake accounts and “download pages”
The administrators of the monitored groups instructed people to report profiles or pages on Facebook with the intention of eliminating them. They even created specific groups for coordinated attacks, recognizing that they are useful for this type of activity.
Although these groups claim to be dedicated to reporting false profiles, digital warriors do not necessarily report inauthentic content, but rather “pititas” personal pages and profiles, that is, those not sympathizers of the MAS.
Some administrators provide a form with clear instructions on which page to report, including the date and time, as well as details about the type of report, such as “fake page,” “hate page,” or “inappropriate language.” bullying.”
In one of the groups dedicated to the report, one of the administrators called for “downloading pages,” who recommended that members have more than one cell phone and at least 30 profiles.
For this type of task, administrators were instructed to create fake profiles on Facebook and in this way accumulate as many reports as possible. #GHIGHI, one of the group administrators, shared links to “training tutorials,” including instructions on how to create fake accounts without using chips.
On February 23, 2023, Meta filed a report to the fourth quarter of 2022, reporting that it detected a network of accounts that was eliminated after “coordinated inauthentic behavior” was detected, which violated various policies at the same time in Bolivia, linked to the current government and the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party. , including individuals who claimed to be part of a group known as “Digital Warriors.”
For this reason, Meta announced that 1,041 Facebook accounts, 450 pages, 14 groups and 130 Instagram accounts were deleted. And although Meta’s action did not include WhatsApp, this report had an impact on the groups of digital warriors in this messaging network monitored by ChequeaBolivia.
On the night of that same day and in the following days, the administrators began to eliminate the WhatsApp groups of the digital warriors, which were previously grouped into communities, thanks to the WhatsApp function that allows several groups to be managed at the same time.
ChequeaBolivia recorded that, within two communities of digital warriors, 69 WhatsApp groups were deleted.
The narrative of the monitored digital warriors was the same as that of Evo Morales, who considered that he had been a victim of these attacks, although they did not present evidence and Meta did not specify such a thing.
These groups also coordinate to amplify misinformation in WhatsApp and Telegram groups. This strategy is documented in greater detail in this research.
Do they receive payment?: up to Bs. 2,000 is offered and there are bonuses
Digital warriors do not openly admit that they work for money, although there are indications that their work is not entirely voluntary.
For example, some group members requested information about the payments associated with this type of work, since they had been informed that they were paid. To which an administrator responded to all members of the WhatsApp group that it was a ‘voluntary’ job.
Despite this, the administrators contacted the group members personally (via private message) to check their names, what their skills were, and how many fake accounts they had.
ChequeaBolivia found a publication with access links to the WhatsApp groups of the digital warriors that also offered 2,000 bs in exchange for creating content on social networks to those interested in supporting.
Another way to encourage people to generate content related to MAS is online contests. They announced that the content with the best interaction would receive a “surprise prize”, without specifying more details.
Finally, during the previously mentioned classes, members were encouraged to generate content on their social networks with great reach, so that they could monetize it.
The tactic of infiltration and delivery of viruses
The digital warriors also had the task of “infiltrating” other WhatsApp groups that belonged to the opposition, mainly from Comunidad Ciudadana (CC), the main rival political party of the MAS in the 2020 elections.
The administrators gave instructions to pose as CC sympathizers, in order to generate “unrest.” For this they shared links to join CC groups.
Another objective of the infiltration was to monitor the content of these opposition groups.
In one of the monitored groups, a user suggested to the administrator named “#GHIGHI” to infiltrate CC groups to “spy” and thus find out what they are up to. Given the suggestion, #GHIGHI responded: “They don’t have anything good, I’m already infiltrated.”
The infiltration was also intended to send viruses. “They send me CC links to send viruses,” wrote one of its members.
ChequeaBolivia found posts on Facebook that offered to learn about “binaries, viruses, trojans, keylogers, to attack pititas.” These terms refer to different forms of malicious software or programs.
The digital warriors also warned about the presence of infiltrators in their groups, and even claimed to have received viruses from them. Therefore, the general recommendation was: “do not open any files.”
The tactic of amplifying publications related to MAS
The administrators sent a series of instructions to position publications on social networks or forward related information to the MAS, as shown below:
The instructions were clear and intended to rank MAS posts, encouraging users to share, tag, comment positively, post to their statuses, react to comments, and share in powerful groups.
The publications promoted under this modality mainly supported the political campaign of the MAS, including President Luis Arce, Vice President David Choquehuanca, and even former President Evo Morales. These publications could be interviews in the media, live broadcasts of these characters or their posts.
According to Meta, Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) is the set of coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate and achieve a strategic objective, where fake accounts are a central part of the operation. The degradation of public debate directly affects democratic processes.
“This investigation was carried out by ChequeaBolivia thanks to the support of the Consortium to Support Regional Journalism in Latin America (CAPIR), led by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).”
