In the buildup to Mexico’s presidential election on July 1, reports have been circulating of “Russian bots” amplifying political messaging in Mexico, raising fears of Russian state-backed interference, such as was seen in the United States in 2016.

@DFRLab has investigated these reports. We have been unable to verify claims of large-scale bot activity emanating from Russia. We have found one apparently Russian botnet boosting Mexican political messages, but this botnet appears to be commercially-run, boosting posts from a wide range of countries and on a wide range of subjects.

The exposure of this botnet underlines the ease with which internet users around the world can access bot amplification, the widespread presence of such commercial botnets in many political debates, and the importance of assessing all the evidence before attempting to attribute them.

Reports of Russian Interference

A number of international outlets began reporting on concerns over possible Russian interference in early May. On May 1, the New York Times ran an article headlined, “Bots and trolls elbow into Mexico’s crowded electoral field.” On May 10, CNN Mexico posted a video headlined, “Elections in Mexico 2018: is Russia interfering?”

(Source: Carmen Aristegui / Youtube)

Both articles quoted digital researcher Manuel Cossío Ramos as saying that he had found apparently Russian bot-driven traffic boosting mentions of poll front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador. According to the New York Times, Cossío said that he found 4.8 million mentions of López Obrador posted to news sites and social media platforms from users outside Mexico, using a tool called Netbase. Two thirds of those mentions came from Russia.

CNN Mexico and, later, the Yucatan Times, quoted a figure of 112 million mentions of López Obrador, with 64 percent coming from Russia, and 18 percent from Ukraine.

Screenshot from the CNN video, showing the alleged origin of the posts. (Source: Carmen Aristegui / Youtube)

The Yucatan Times article added that Cossío scanned Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and other platforms for mentions of López Obrador from April 10 to May 9. In his CNN appearance, he also gave examples of four hashtags, although he did not specifically link them to bot activity. These were #VivaMORENA, #YoVoyConLopezObrador, #LopezObrador2018 and #MuereElPri.

Verifying The Claims

Using the Sysomos online tool, @DFRLab scanned for mentions of “Lopez Obrador” and “LopezObrador” for the same time period, and for mentions of the four other hashtags over a full year. Each scan covered Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook public posts, blogs, forums, and news sites.

None of our searches confirmed Cossío’s results. Sysomos registered 96,900 mentions of “Lopez Obrador” across all platforms. Of those which gave a geographical location outside Mexico, half were from the United States, with small clusters in the United Kingdom, Canada, India and Venezuela. Russia and Ukraine did not even feature in the top ten sources.