Bot campaign on Twitter fuels confusion about Bolivian unrest
0Reported today on The Verge
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Reported today in The Verge.
Bot campaign on Twitter fuels confusion about Bolivian unrest
Since last week, a network of Twitter bot accounts has been spreading confusion about the events surrounding Bolivian President Evo Morales' abrupt resignation. The messages, which appear in English and Spanish, all carry the exact same text, beginning with the words, "Friends from everywhere, in Bolivia there was no coup."
Initial iterations of the tweet seem to have been written by an authentic critic of Morales, but the sentiment was co-opted and amplified by what experts say is a network of automated Twitter accounts. Although Twitter has removed many of the tweets, there are 4,320 still on the network as of press time.
The news comes as legitimate confusion about the events surrounding Morales' resignation continues to circulate online. On November 11th, 2019, Morales resigned amid nationwide protests over his highly contested reelection. The populist president had been trying to seek a fourth term - a move seen by many as unconstitutional. When the initial vote count came in, Morales appeared to be losing, which cast doubt on his subsequent landslide victory.
The Organization of American States, a coalition based in Washington, DC, audited the election and voiced "deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results revealed after the closing of the polls," as reported by The Intercept. The dispute set the stage for weeks of protests that ultimately resulted in the military calling for Morales to step down, which he eventually did. However, the military's involvement has led many to see the transfer of power as fundamentally undemocratic and describe it as a coup.
On November 10th at 6:27PM, a Bolivian college student p