{"id":2413,"date":"2018-01-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2018-01-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T00:00:00","slug":"the-virtual-troops-of-the-chavista-revolution-have-their-matrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/the-virtual-troops-of-the-chavista-revolution-have-their-matrix\/","title":{"rendered":"The Virtual Troops of the Chavista Revolution have their Matrix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At \r\nthe cry of \"troop\", Mario Silva, a legendary presenter of the Venezuelan \r\ntelevision channel (VTV), used to decree trends on Twitter. The call to post \r\ntags favorable to the ruling party in this social media was followed by other \r\nfaces of the public television. Thus, Chavismo has earned for years a privileged \r\nspace on the Trending Topics list in Venezuela. But that is not the result of \r\nforce of popularity or simple influence of followers only. Or, at least, that is \r\nwhat documents like last year\u2019s leak from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and \r\nJustice and the virtual programs that detect a virtual army at the service of \r\nthe self-styled Bolivarian revolution showed.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

The \r\nGovernment of Venezuela stands out among 28 countries evaluated by the \r\nUniversity of Oxford, presented in the report \"Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: \r\nA Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation\" (published in 2017), \r\nwhich appeal to a range of cybernetic tools to try to penetrate virtual \r\naudiences. Based on the 37-folio study, these troops are directed from the \r\nMinistry of Communication and Information with money from the Venezuelan State \r\nand with political objectives. Other nations analyzed were Vietnam, North Korea, \r\nEcuador, China, the Philippines, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Israel, \r\nMexico, the United States of America, Ukraine, Germany or India. \"Cybernetic \r\ntroops are often made up of a variety of different players. In some cases, \r\ngovernments have their own internal teams that are employed as public officials. \r\nIn others, talent is subcontracted to contractors or private volunteers,\" \r\nexplains the study.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

At \r\nthe cry of \"troop\", Mario Silva, a legendary presenter of the Venezuelan \r\ntelevision channel (VTV), used to decree trends on Twitter. The call to post \r\ntags favorable to the ruling party in this social media was followed by other \r\nfaces of the public television. Thus, Chavismo has earned for years a privileged \r\nspace on the Trending Topics list in Venezuela. But that is not the result of \r\nforce of popularity or simple influence of followers only. Or, at least, that is \r\nwhat documents like last year\u2019s leak from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and \r\nJustice and the virtual programs that detect a virtual army at the service of \r\nthe self-styled Bolivarian revolution showed.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

The \r\nGovernment of Venezuela stands out among 28 countries evaluated by the \r\nUniversity of Oxford, presented in the report \"Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: \r\nA Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation\" (published in 2017), \r\nwhich appeal to a range of cybernetic tools to try to penetrate virtual \r\naudiences. Based on the 37-folio study, these troops are directed from the \r\nMinistry of Communication and Information with money from the Venezuelan State \r\nand with political objectives. Other nations analyzed were Vietnam, North Korea, \r\nEcuador, China, the Philippines, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Israel, \r\nMexico, the United States of America, Ukraine, Germany or India. \"Cybernetic \r\ntroops are often made up of a variety of different players. In some cases, \r\ngovernments have their own internal teams that are employed as public officials. \r\nIn others, talent is subcontracted to contractors or private volunteers,\" \r\nexplains the study.<\/p>\n\n\n

Two testimonies found by Armando.Info agree that the orders \r\nare issued from an office of the Ministry of Communications and Information, \r\nexclusively enabled to coordinate social media, and sometimes they hire the \r\nservices of private companies engaged in the virtual world. The manual of the \r\nMinistry of Internal Affairs, Justice and Peace, entitled \"Training Project of \r\nthe Bolivarian Revolution Trolls Army to face the Media War\" - leaked to the \r\nInstitute of Press and Society of Venezuela in 2017 -, gives instructions for \r\nthe consolidation of a virtual battalion. Throughout 14 pages, the manual warns \r\nthat the cybernetic army will be made up of several squads: press, design, IT, \r\ncontent \"incubators,\" and an attack squad called \"flames,\" which is capable of \r\nsowing \"false positives.\" <\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

This \r\nentire organization chart operates from three command posts divided in the \r\ncreative, IT and those commissioned to attack. Thus, in the Ministry of Internal \r\nAffairs and Justice only are over 600 people - among employees and contracted - \r\nin charge of around 15,203 accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, \r\nGoogle+ and Whatsapp. Of the five squads projected in that portfolio, the one of \r\nthe \"fake news\" or \"false positives\" stands out. \"In times of tension or \r\nconflict, the order was to generate rumors or false news to confuse and thus, \r\nsubsequently, disprove and discredit certain characters of the opposition,\" says \r\nan insider who was part of the troop. \r\n   <\/p>\n\n\n

Undoubtedly, \r\nthe Government has tried to use social media as a measure of popularity. \r\nPresident Nicol\u00e1s Maduro has assumed the challenge imposed by cyberspace as a \r\nreal war. In June, the Head of State criticized the Twitter company for \r\ndeactivating thousands of accounts of activists of the United Socialist Party of \r\nVenezuela (PSUV) \"just for being Chavista<\/I>,\" while arguing that it was \r\n\"fear\" because the governing party entails a political \"majority\" in this \r\ncountry. \"Of course they (Twitter) have the key, they have the server and they \r\nsaid 'it's over', and they closed thousands of our accounts, but if they closed \r\na thousand accounts, we will open 10,000 more with the youth and the \r\nrevolutionary force of public opinion and the Venezuelan truth... The battle in \r\nsocial media is very important. They know that it is very important and they use \r\nsocial media for permanent psychological warfare,\" he said. The claim was made \r\nwhile anti-government protests were taking place between April and July, one of \r\nthe most discredited episodes for Chavismo due to the death of over 120 people \r\nand hundreds of arrests.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

Thanks \r\nto the Botometer application, Armando.info analyzed several Twitter accounts of \r\npoliticians related to the ruling party. The one of Diosdado Cabello -one of the \r\nhierarchs of Chavism- portrays him with false followers. Of a sample of a \r\nthousand of its two million followers, 15% are part of inactive users, robots or \r\nspammers.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

The \r\nfigure, however, is not entirely atypical either, as 9% to 15% of active Twitter \r\naccounts behave like bots, aimed to act with different \"target\" groups to \r\ninfluence opinions and thus publish content of connected applications, according \r\nto the conclusions of the Eleventh International Conference of the AAAI \r\n(Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) on Web and Social \r\nNetworks, held in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"
Robots - Diosdado Cabello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

But \r\nit can be about the smallest calculations against the sophisticated mechanisms \r\nto create false profiles in social media. Luis Carlos D\u00edaz, a journalist focused \r\non the study of social networks, indicates that in the detection of a false \r\nTwitter account, the outdated metrics are no longer valid. \"The question of \r\nwhether or not it has an identity has already been overcome. When one follows \r\nthe false accounts of the Government they have a face, an avatar, a name. How \r\nare they detected? The idea is to see the trends that the Government originates \r\nin Twitter; for example, verify some key details: a same tweet, replicated again \r\nand again, can offer us indications of inorganic \r\naccounts.\"<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Undoubtedly Maduro has fake accounts and an army of bots to replicate content and echo in favor of official propaganda.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n

Many \r\nof Chavismo's accounts have a profile characterized by spreading rumors and \r\nconspiracy theories, in the Marxism-Leninism propaganda style. It is not an \r\nexclusive issue of Venezuela. In the Philippines, many of the so-called \r\n\"keyboard trolls\" were hired to spread propaganda for presidential candidate and \r\ncurrent head of state Rodrigo Roa Duterte during the election. Based on the \r\nOxford study, this strategy has been continued with the aim of spreading and \r\namplifying messages to support his policies now that he is in \r\npower.<\/p>\n\n\n

Twitter \r\nhas a specific role in Venezuela because it has become an information channel \r\nagainst the censorship of traditional media. D\u00edaz explains, however, that in \r\nthat virtual ecosystem there is a voracious contest between political players. \r\n\u201cUndoubtedly Maduro has fake accounts and an army of bots to replicate content \r\nand echo in favor of official propaganda. That is a \r\nreality.\"<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

In \r\nthe history of the virtual battles of Chavismo, D\u00edaz adds an unforgettable \r\nanecdote, the use of an application to attract followers during the presidential \r\ncampaign of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, in 2013. \"Many people joined the official website of \r\nthe then candidate of the governing party. After registering their Twitter \r\naccounts, they automatically retweeted content favorable to Maduro. The trap was \r\nevident after the company suspended thousands of users for that reason, as it \r\nhas done on other occasions. In addition, there are many complaints from \r\nlaboratories operating in the state Aragua, especially during the government of \r\nTareck El Aissami, and with the support of state officials and public \r\ninstitutions for the purpose of conducting official campaigns through social \r\nmedia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

The \r\npolitical turmoil of the Bolivarian Republic is not alien to the Web. With bots \r\nand robots, Chavismo creates its virtual \r\nreality.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even Diosdado Cabello has false followers. The Government of Venezuela has been able to measure itself in political cyberspace. Hence, it has created an authentic machinery of robots at the service of the governing party in social media that is mainly controlled by public officials and coordinated from ministries. This is the result of several studies, testimonials and applications that measure the \"Twitterzuela\" convulsion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":52069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387,2210],"tags":[509,705,176],"pais":[4216],"serie":[],"localizacion":[4227],"ppma_author":[2241],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internacionales","category-investigacion","tag-diosdado-cabello","tag-robots","tag-venezuela","pais-venezuela-en"],"acf":{"reportage-top-html":""},"views":1587,"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2387,"label":"Internacionales"},{"value":2210,"label":"Investigacion"}],"post_tag":[{"value":509,"label":"Diosdado Cabello"},{"value":705,"label":"robots"},{"value":176,"label":"Venezuela"}],"pais":[{"value":4216,"label":"Venezuela"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/14012018-1.jpg",1250,500,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"ARMANDO.INFO","author_link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/author\/armando2\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2387,"name":"Internacionales","slug":"internacionales","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2387,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":127,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0","cat_ID":2387,"category_count":127,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Internacionales","category_nicename":"internacionales","category_parent":0},{"term_id":2210,"name":"Investigacion","slug":"investigacion","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2210,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":670,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0","cat_ID":2210,"category_count":670,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Investigacion","category_nicename":"investigacion","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":509,"name":"Diosdado Cabello","slug":"diosdado-cabello","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":509,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":14,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0"},{"term_id":705,"name":"robots","slug":"robots","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":705,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0"},{"term_id":176,"name":"Venezuela","slug":"venezuela","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":176,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":100,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0"}],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 17:20:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":2241,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"maolis-castro","display_name":"MAOLIS CASTRO","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"pais","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pais?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"localizacion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/localizacion?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}