© Reuters/Luisa Gonzalez
"There are thousands of what are obviously bot accounts trolling anyone who tweets about the right-wing coup in Bolivia... There's a big operation going on here," tweeted Ben Norton, a journalist and assistant editor of the Grayzone Project. He noted that the accounts have formulaic handles consisting of a common name followed by a series of numbers. Screenshots show anti-Morales messages being posted by new accounts with only a handful of tweets.
Incredibly, his observation was bombarded by denials... from generic Twitter accounts created in November.
One user flagged by Norton had only four tweets - all of them attacking the journalist for sounding the alarm over the suspicious Twitter activity. The account was only three hours old.
Morales announced his resignation on Sunday, following protests and violence in the capital, La Paz. The Bolivian leader had called for new elections in hopes of appeasing protesters, but he stepped down hours later after being urged to do so by the country's military chief. The political turmoil has been labeled as a military coup by Morales' supporters, including UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Comment: Will Twitter shut these fake accounts down? Not until sufficient damage is done.