Google Alphabet, owner of YouTube, canceled 82 YouTube channels and three blogs, which disseminated information related to the Ortega regime, said a spokesman for the technology company to the Reuters agency. The closure of these accounts occurs two days after the company Meta, owner of Facebook, deleted a “Transgovernmental trolley farm in Nicaragua”.
The Google Alphabet spokesperson explained that the removal of the channels is part of an ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Nicaragua. Already in the Meta report, YouTube was indicated as part of the Ortega network, which was executing a strategy using accounts on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, BlogSpot and Telegram.
The channels had fewer than 1,500 subscribers in total and, mainly, “they were uploading fraudulent content in Spanish about games and sports. A small subset uploaded content that supported President Ortega and the Sandinista party and criticized the United States. “
“This campaign was consistent with similar findings reported by Facebook,” the spokesperson explained to Reuters.
Facebook stripped “trolley farm”
Similarly, Meta argued in its report that the pro-government “trolley farm” posted “positive content about the government and negative comments about the opposition, using hundreds of fake accounts to promote these posts.” But it also demonstrated the involvement of several of the State institutions in the generation of digital content.
“It was operated mainly by employees of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (TELCOR), working from the headquarters of the postal service in Managua. Additionally, they managed smaller groups of fake accounts from other government institutions, including the Supreme Court of Justice and the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS), ”the report indicates.
Some Ortega profiles on Twitter claimed on Friday that they had been suspended “thousands” or “two hundred” accounts, and attributed the dismantling of the “trolley farm” to an “attack by the empire” and described the massive suspension of accounts as a ” censorship to create a media siege to the accounts on the left of the continent ”because they say they have also suspended accounts in Venezuela.
However, Twitter and Facebook point to the “inauthentic behavior” of Ortega trolls and the proliferation of fake accounts as the cause of the suspension. “We eliminated a network of 937 Facebook accounts, 140 pages, 24 groups and 363 Instagram accounts in Nicaragua,” said the technology company.
Opponents, human rights defenders and journalists have denounced being victims of smear and harassment campaigns through false profiles, which showed their sympathy with the Ortega regime.
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