A large archive of tweets from Venezuela reveals that the Maduro government is relying heavily on automation to amplify pro-regime propaganda — including an app specifically developed to help users automate their retweets. This marks the first verifiable instance of a government using a Twitter app to amplify its domestic propaganda.

On January 31, Twitter released a massive dataset on Venezuela, as part of its crackdown on a “state-backed influence campaign” aimed at the country’s domestic audience. The dataset included more than 8 million tweets from about 1,200 accounts that mostly laundered pro-Maduro propaganda.

In a blog post, Twitter’s Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, said:

We have removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela which appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences. We have shared information on these accounts with our industry peers, and continue to investigate malicious activity originating in Venezuela, both targeting audiences within Venezuela and abroad.

This archive helps to explain how these state-backed influence campaigns work and how they execute disinformation operations domestically. Consisting of roughly 1,200 accounts, the archive likely constitutes the largest domestic state-backed influence campaign that Twitter has taken down.

Background

As authentic grassroots political and social movements developed in response to the domestic political unrest in Venezuela, a state-backed influence operation emerged online. This operation hijacked the public discourse, relying in part on automation to amplify its reach and build a wider audience.

In its announcement of the takedown, Twitter referred to it as a “state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences” and noted that the operation primarily used government-linked propaganda hashtags such as #LegionFANB, which expressed support for the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela, and #Tropa, a hashtag commonly used by regime supporters on Twitter to identify themselves. Out of the top 10 hashtag combinations used, two in particular — #RT #Noticias and #Noticias #RT — often accompanied stories from Russia Today, including content from Actualidad RT, the Spanish version of RT, and Sputnik News, both of which are Kremlin broadcasters. Moscow is one of the Maduro regime’s chief allies in Venezuela.