It was clear to participants in social media around events in April 2018 in Nicaragua that the Nicaraguan government quickly put together a team to create disinformation and combat the avalanche of information- videos, photos, often from previous supporters of the regime – showing the brutal governmental response to the protests around the forest fire in the Si-A-PAZ reserve and then the social security reforms. This translated article gives an inside view of how these virtual mobs operate, and in these days have worked to discredit recently abducted opposition leaders.
This is how the “virtual mobs” of the regime “cause anxiety” from public institutions
By Divergentes, June 11, 2021
Julio Avilés Sánchez participates within the digital propaganda apparatus of the Sandinista Front, he is the son of the Chief of the Army of Nicaragua, Julio César Avilés. The digital platforms operate in the Post office of Nicaragua and in the Municipal Government of Managua, INJUVE, among other public institutions. Erick Rios, supervisor of the Youth Communicators of the Sandinista Youth, directs the digital trolls on the national level on the orders of the Vice President, Rosario Murillo. He works all out creating disinformation to “plant doubt” in social networks.
Erick Rios, coordinator of the network of communicators of the Sandinista Youth, is responsible for the “virtual mobs.” In the photo during a training in the Post Office building in Nicaragua, where they operate.
On the night of this Thursday, June 10, through Whatsapp groups, at least seven videos and posters circulated where opposition politicians, human rights defenders, journalists and former Sandinista commandantes appeared in which “prison for all of them” was requested. This is an orchestrated strategy of the “digital mobs” that the Sandinista Front, the party in power, has installed in public institutions to create threatening content and disinformation.
According to a source to which this media had access, these strategies are carried out to announce actions and cause anxiety, the objectives of publications like those of Thursday, in which the opposition politician Tamara Dávila, the human rights defender Vilma Nuñez, and journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro and former guerrillas like Dora Maria Téllez and Hugo Torres, appeared, among others.
One of the sons of the Chief of the Army of Nicaragua, Julio Cesar Avilés, heads at least two profiles of social media that are used to carry out propaganda for Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua for 14 years, and who in this electoral year has shown intentions to remain in power through repressive actions.
The son of the General of the Army is Julio Avilés Sánchez and he is responsible for the pages Molotov Digital and Siempre Más Allá, according to a source within the Post Office building of Nicaragua, where these social media profiles operate.
DIVERGENTES and Nicaragua Actual called Julio Avilés to ask about his work in the Nicaragua Post Office. Avilés accepted the call and hung up when he was asked the question.
In the case of Molotov it is a page that is dedicated to political propaganda, interviews and analyses of the current situation slanted by the narrative of the Sandinista Front, the party that Ortega leads. While the page of Siempre Más Allá has a more social profile: publicity about projects, works and the party agenda.
“Everything that is going to be published passes through his hands (Julio Avilés). He fulfills the same functions as the director of media,” said the source. Avilés is responsible for a team who he assigns to cover activities, do art, design, produce and publish videos on social networks.
In his Twitter profile, Avilés publishes propaganda of the Sandinista Front, his father the Chief of the Army, and immediately retweets his brother Carlos Avilés, who is also active on networks that favor the Sandinista Front; Erick Rios and the publications of the page under his responsibility Molotov and other accounts like @PuebloEjercito, @BotSandinista, @Plomo1979, among others.
The source stated that Avilés was assigned this function by the former director of the Telecommunication and Mail Institute (TELCOR), Orlando Castillo, who died last year. The pages of the son of the Chief of the Army form part of a cluster of profiles that work exclusively in the creation and propagation of content favorable to the regime, but also in disinformation and discrediting of those who are considered opponents.
Propaganda as the prelude to repression
The office installed in the Nicaraguan Post Office aimed at producing propaganda and disinformation on social networks.
In recent weeks it has been demonstrated that strategies which have been announced from these means of propaganda the regime later has carried out against its opponents. This was demonstrated last week in the hunt against the candidates to the presidency and politicians which they called “Operation Danto 21” or “Coup Money Box”. One of the strategies is “planting the seed of doubt” with respect to an issue, the source says. For example, they do a publication insinuating that the Police are going to capture someone to measure how the users will react or to “cause anxiety” in the people who are the objective of these actions.
In the radio program on Wednesday, the political operator of the Sandinista Front, William Grigsby, confirmed the existence of the virtual mobs. “What great work the boys have done! In this Danto 21 offensive they have been great, soldiering on: a decision just comes out, everyone looks sharp and are in the ideological and political combat in all the social networks, every last one: Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, they do not let one slip by,” said Grigsby, who added, “they are a ton of young people, kids who are in this and they are experts.”
Alberto Escorcia, an investigator of Tecnopolitica, told the media AJ Plus of Mexico that he found in Nicaragua some 60 accounts that use TweetDeck, a tool of Twitter, to impose narratives. This means that the Sandinista supporters use several accounts where they pass themselves off as other people to amplify official messages or impose narratives and attack opponents.
Escorcia said that in the case of the troll attacks they tend to be separate cells who do not use hashtags but are responsible for monitoring journalists, activists and politicians to “attack them or exhibit their personal lives.”
Directors of trolls
The platforms of Avilés are found located in the Post office Building of Nicaragua, where another two operate: Barricada Digital and Redvolución. While in the Municipal Government of Managua the Juventud Presidente has its offices, led by Joe Vargas.
Wendy Jarquin is responsible for Barricada, a close accomplice of Erick Rios, head of the Network of Young Communicators, one of the arms of the Sandinista Youth at the orders of Rosario Murillo. Meanwhile Redvolución is directed by Efrén Narváez.
Other people responsible are Oduber Guevara, who previously was press agent for the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR); Andrea Navarro and Alejandro Rugama, who coordinate the team of graphic designers and direct the creation of digital content, like for example infographs or photos with phrases from the speeches of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which immediately after the speech are disseminated on social networks.
Erick Rios is the person in charge of controlling and monitoring Sandinista social networks. He is the person who directs the attacks on networks against publications where the regime or its repressive measures are criticized. “He is a person who is very trusted by the compañera (Rosario Murillo),” related the source. Rios was briefly the coordinator of the Sandinista Youth when he replaced Bosco Castillo, who now is the Minister of Youth.
In order to be responsible for social networks, Rios is constantly sent outside the country to be trained. One photo which this media accessed shows him leading a training session. In the image he appears in front of a whiteboard where some metrics of social networks are visible.
We also had access to a Whatsapp group where he directs the actions: “starting tomorrow the social networks will be taken by hashtag every day. We will not give space to the right not even one day,” wrote Rios. In an audio on that same network he is heard saying that he sent a link of Channel 13 and that “we are going to be connected shortly.” Afterwards it can be heard that they confirm that “we are active” from different provinces and municipalities, like Madriz, Chinandega, Río San Juan, Juigalpa, Nagarote and Wiwilí.
Rosario Murillo created troll farms in 2018
Photo leaked of Fidel Moreno giving a zoom talk to youth who work in the Post Office Building.
In fact, in 2018 during the beginning of the social and political crisis of April, Erick Rios was named by the First Lady to coordinate and direct “Laboratories” in the “Provinces and municipalities” of the country, whose principal headquarters at that moment operated in the Institute of Youth (INJUVE).
“We are going to work with the Compañero Erick Rios, so that with the Secretaries of Communications we might continue implementing all the Plans that mark and multiply our active and leading presence in Networks (sic),” reports a newsletter sent out by Murillo on April 20, 2018. “Creating a unique communications channel through Whatsapp with the compañeros of communication of the FSLN through the number 8720-1455 for the purpose of expediting and making operational all of our strategy on Social Networks,” added the document.
An investigation of Confidencial in 2019 revealed the emails of Murillo, where she ordered the creation of troll factories starting on April 20, 2018, when the political crisis was at its high point and the social networks were full of denouncements of the Ortega and Murillo regime. “This is the world today, and this is communications for the world of today,” warns Murillo in a newsletter that presented Erick Rios as the person responsible for executing the strategy in the social networks.
According to the investigation, Murillo sent a manual to be implemented in networks “with the Goebbelian technique” (Joseph Goebbels, the propagandist of Adolf Hitler) that ordered repeating and repeating key messages. “Activate the entire Sandinista militancy who have their accounts in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and those who do not have them, to create them around our message with the following hashtags (which are the ones previously mentioned)”, states the manual of the Vice President.
The actions of these farms were to position the message, denounce the “vandalism of minuscule groups”, prepare memes, create audiovisual materials around the content provided by Sandinista media, designs with hashtags, comment on live transmissions, denounce “false news”, block and denounce accounts with offensive messages, create infographs, canvases, audios and videos for Whatsapp, Messenger and Instagram. “Ensure data plans for the coverage of social networks and live transmissions of our hikes, festivals and activities in general,” ordered Murillo.
Trolls monitored
Before Orlando Castillo died, the former director of Telcor, “the troll farms” received salary bonuses. Now the salaries are paid by the public institution where officially they are reported on the payroll. One source that works in one of these communications media said that they were paying him 20,000 córdobas ($570) a month in one media and another 12,000 córdobas ($342) a month for working in another media close to the regime.
Nevertheless, there are no trolls in the Post Office building. There are also trolls in the Conventions and Events Center (PAEBANIC), in the National Technological Institute (INATEC) and the Nicaraguan Institute of Youth (INJUVE). In all these places taking photos is prohibited and they are monitored and watched by security cameras to prevent any information from leaking. The cell phones of the workers are also intervened.
Nevertheless, a photograph was leaked from the Post Office building of the secretary of the Municipal Government of Managua, Fidel Moreno, a close accomplice of Rosario Murillo and who was sanctioned by the United States for participating in the repression of 2018. Moreno is seen in a projector talking to workers in a zoom meeting.
The trolls in the Post Office Building are called “Proyecto Digital”. They are some 100 workers who have computers, televisions, laptops, video and photo cameras.
There are at least five people dedicated to monitoring the national and international communications media, journalists and opposition figures of Nicaragua. These people work on shifts to cover 24 hours a day and send reports of publications directly to Rosario Murillo.
“This information is sent by email to the compañera (Rosario Murillo), everything that happens, what is circulating on social media, she knows it because of that monitoring team,” said the source.