Washington firm ran fake Facebook accounts in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico, report finds
Washington firm ran fake Facebook accounts in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico, report finds
The operation by the public relations company is an example, the report says, of how Americans sow disinformation in foreign countries
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/04/facebook-bolivia-cls/
By Craig Timberg and
Elizabeth Dwoskin
September 4, 2020 at 1:37 p.m. CDT
When Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the nation’s legitimate president in January 2019, an Instagram account, @FrenteLibreVzla, posted a video declaring him a “new leader” who would bring freedom to the embattled nation, according to a research report published Friday.
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“Importantly, our past client work in Latin America, including opposition to oppressive regimes, was not conducted on behalf of foreign entities — the work was funded and directed by clients inside each country. This makes CLS’s work very different from the foreign influence activities reported by Facebook, and any characterization of CLS’ work in the three countries at issue as ‘foreign’ is wrong,” CLS Strategies’ chief executive Bob Chlopak said in a statement.
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Facebook announced Tuesday it had closed 55 accounts, 42 pages and 36 Instagram accounts linked to CLS Strategies that targeted politics in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico. The effort spent $3.6 million in advertising across all three countries, a sum that Facebook executives said was notable for its size and reflective of what happens when actors with deep pockets mount a disinformation operation. The pages had amassed more than 500,000 followers, Facebook said.
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On Thursday, the office of Áñez, in Bolivia, confirmed that CLS Strategies was contracted in December, 2019 “to carry out lobbying in support of Bolivian democracy” and “in support of holding new presidential elections.” The firm, the statement said, only facilitated contacts between the Añez government and U.S. officials in the “executive and legislative” branches, and provided “no other services or activities.” The contract was reported as required under U.S. law, the statement said.
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