How the “trolley farm” dismantled by Facebook in Nicaragua worked less than a week before the elections

The United States has described the election as a sham.

Ben Nimmo, Intelligence Leader for Meta’s Influence Operations, told AFP that the accounts were controlled by the government of Daniel Ortega and the ruling party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

The accounts were closed last month.

So far there is no known reaction from the Nicaraguan authorities.

The “trolley farm” – a coordinated effort to manipulate public discourse using fake accounts – reportedly began in 2018 in an attempt to denigrate the opposition.

The effort spread to other platforms, including TikTok and Twitter, Meta said.

In 2018, the Ortega government cracked down on protests, in which more than 300 people died. Since then, thousands of people have fled into exile.

“The objective was to flood the conversation on the internet in Nicaragua with pro-government and anti-opposition messages“Nimmo pointed out.

“We take down these networks based on the behavior in which we see them engage on our platform, it is not based on who are the actors behind it or the content they post, it is based on the behavior and use of fake accounts,” added.

Facebook said in a statement that the network was “a coordinated effort … to corrupt or manipulate public discourse by using fake accounts to create people on all platforms and mislead people about who is behind them.”

Stated that the operation had been active on its platforms since 2018 and that it was operated mainly by personnel from TELCOR, Nicaragua’s telecommunications control body, who worked from the postal service headquarters in the capital, Managua.

The Supreme Court of Justice, which has been an ally of Ortega, and the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute also handled smaller groups of fake accounts, Facebook said.

The analysis suggests that people posted to the accounts as their daily work, from 9 to 5 in the afternoon, with a lunch break.

Production decreased on weekends.

It is estimated that some 585,000 accounts followed these pages on Facebook and another 125,000 did so on Instagram.

An investment of US $ 12,000 in advertising was also detected on both social networks, paid in Nicaraguan currency and US dollars.

“This was one of the trolling operations more intergovernmental we have disrupted to date, with multiple state entities participating in this activity at the same time, “the Facebook researchers said in their report.

“As of the end of 2019, he increasingly focused on publishing and artificially amplifying the praise about the Nicaraguan government and the ruling FSLN party. This activity also included non-political content on tourism and sports in Nicaragua,” the report states.

“The volume of publications and the variety of media brands increased over time, probably in an attempt to dominate the public space on the Internet with pro-government messages and drown out dissenting voices“, add the researchers.

The Nicaraguan government has been arresting opponents and critics since June on charges of treason or money laundering.

Many say the allegations are unfounded and designed to facilitate Ortega’s reelection.

The EU foreign policy chief recently called Nicaragua “one of the worst dictatorships in the world.”

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