- Escrito por Escrito por Radio Reloj
- Categoría: News
- Visto: 98
Investigation confirms perverse social media operation against Cuba
The renowned Spanish analyst Julián Macías Tovar has broken down the intense campaign articulated on digital social networks against the Cuban Revolution in recent days. It was launched from abroad and has had as its reference the Argentine Agustín Antonelli, a political operator of the right who has participated in several operations against the processes of the left in Latin America.
The operation made intensive use of robots, algorithms and accounts that had just been created for the occasion, in order to create a chorus of the messages issued by the referents of the manipulative campaign.
The first account that used the HT #SOSCuba related to the situation of Covid-19 in the country was one located in Spain. It posted more than a thousand tweets on both July 10 and 11, with an automation of 5 retweets per second.
The researcher points out as one of the referents of the operation the Argentine Agustín Antonetti, who is part of the right-wing Fundación Libertad. Antonetti has been an active participant in the hoaxes and bots campaigns on social networks against left-wing processes in Latin America, among them against that of the Bolivian Evo Morales and the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as previous investigations revealed, based on the sanction that Facebook applied to numerous accounts for political operations in the networks.
What is happening in Cuba?
I analyzed the more than two million tweets using the HT #SOSCuba that began asking for humanitarian aid with the participation of artists and thousands of newly created accounts and bots for deaths from COVID and ended in mobilizations in the streets.
The HT #SOSCuba was used with few tweets as of July 5 along with HT #SOSMatanzas due to the collapse of the hospital in Matanzas, on the 10th with the record of deaths from COVID, hundreds of thousands were launched with both HTs, which increased the day 11, ending with demonstrations.
Tovar points out in his diligent investigation that campaigns were made for artists to participate with a tweet with HT #SOSCuba, due to deaths from COVID and lack of medical resources.To do this, a tweet was launched that received more than 1,100 responses. One striking thing is that if you analyze those responses, almost all come from newly created accounts, or are no more than one year old. More than 1,500 accounts of which participated in the operation with the hashtag #SOSCuba were created between July 10 and 11.
With these data, campaigns were made for artists to participate with a tweet with HT #SOSCuba, due to deaths from COVID and lack of medical resources. The most important action was this tweet with more than 1100 responses asking to mention international artists with the HT
One striking thing is that if we analyze the accounts that respond to that tweet mentioning artists and celebrities, we can see that almost all the accounts are newly created, or have a maximum age of one year, as can be seen in this video.
The international media took charge after making the campaign articulated with the artists visible
In fact, if we analyze the accounts participating in the campaign with HT, we see a very high number of accounts created on July 10 and 11. More than 1,500. You can see the creation date in the last column.
On Sunday, July 11, with hundreds of thousands of tweets and the participation of many artist accounts, the label became a worldwide trend and in several countries, at which point the first demonstration in San Antonio de los Baños published from the United States took place. United by the account of the named Yusnaby with thousands of RTs. As Tovar points out: “Curiously, Yusnaby (US Navy) is the account that comes out the most in my threads, because it is one of the patterns of automated fake accounts that spread hoaxes and hate campaigns. If you look for my @ + Yusnaby you will find infinities ”.
The network analyst reveals that when analyzing the label of the campaign, the most noticeable thing is the repetition of exact tweets, which denotes the existence of automated patterns with hundreds of thousands of tweets and a similar number of followed and followers, by the automated system gain of followers.
There are several automated accounts that send the same tweet, even with the same mention of who put the original text including the video they want to move. All accounts are followed by Yusnaby.
Another highly visible element of the operation is the massive use of registration accounts, with matrices very common in other international campaigns such as the coup in Bolivia, or the active presence of vocalists from the Latin American right such as Tertsch, Cabal and Tuto Quiroga.
Tovar also denounces the use of manipulated images or events in other countries and the articulation of the operation of networks with various right-wing media on the continent.
The three phases of the operation against Cuba
The first phase was to launch the campaign with the HT denouncing the collapse of the health system due to COVID cases and deaths requesting help through false and automated accounts that massively mentioned artists from all over the world, many of them participated using the HT , taking the HT to be a world TT.
The second phase was to publish in the media that dozens of artists joined a campaign to ask for a humanitarian corridor to save the situation in Cuba, just as they tried to do in Venezuela, a situation that normally only occurs in military conflicts, especially when Cuba has figures 15 times better than countries like Spain, Ecuador or the US, or 40 times better than Peru, where this type of campaign was not carried out.
The third phase are demonstrations in principle with few people, but with a HT being a world TT with maximum repercussion that helped them grow and with a final campaign by a part of those who coordinated the campaign to request a military invasion of the United States.
The investigation confirms the complaint by the Cuban authorities that it is a concerted operation in the digital public space, to which “large resources are dedicated, it is not something improvised. It is something very well designed, structures and agencies in the United States with laboratories dedicated to creating these conditions and achieving their objectives ”.
Another hoax is that Raúl Castro fled to Venezuela by private and secret plane. This tweet has 2K RTs, it is only one of hundreds, The image is from the summit of Alba 4 years ago.
Here we can see some of the publications in different networks with the video of the celebration of Argentina in the Obelisk saying that they are the Cubans demonstrating, the video that Risto also uses. On Twitter 3K RTs and on Fb, a thousand times shared, just in these examples.
Another of the repeated images are images of demonstrations in Egypt, saying that they are the Malecón in Havana.
Rosa María Payá, owner of the Foundation for Pan-American Democracy, played a leading role in organizing the events last Sunday in Cuba. What interests does it promote and whom does it defend? These questions are answered by journalist Juan José del Castillo on his Alternative Press YouTube channel.
Holguín province reported 233 cases to COVID-19 and 2,267 PCR were performed. A deceased from the municipality of Cueto was reported.
Decree-Law No. 31 on Animal Welfare came into force after its publication on April 10 in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba, which will allow a better treatment of animals in the country.