Escorcia, a seasoned Mexican internet activist, had been thumbing through his Twitter feed, when he noticed several accounts posting derogatory messages at supporters of a national electricians' union strike. Escorcia realized they didn't stem from real people, as they all repeated the same message and had profile photos of attractive people from other countries. He started documenting a veritable troll boom the following year during Mexico's presidential elections, when tens of thousands of these bots mobilized support for political candidates.

When attacked in the street, Escorcia pressed a panic button the government issues at-risk journalists and activists . Police didn't respond for half an hour. Recently, he began fearing for his life after someone started harassing him at home, repeatedly ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night. He never saw anyone, but the message was clear: Keep publishing about the bots, and something terrible might happen. When Motherboard spoke to Escorcia in February, he was planning on leaving Mexico indefinitely.

These threats aren't to be taken lightly: Mexico was the third most deadly country in the world for journalists, according to the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders. At least nine journalists were murdered in Mexico in 2016 alone. And while Escorcia is technically covered under a federal protections for journalists and activists, he doesn't trust the government's ability to protect him.

Taking on this role in a country such as Mexico, where swarms of automated Twitter accounts exercise a troubling amount of political influence and threaten the safety of activists, has not come without cost to Escorcia's own sense of security. Escorcia explained that his activism has repeatedly been met with violent intimidations, which bridge the virtual and physical worlds. He said that almost every time he publishes one of these analyses or talks about them in the media, he receives death threats.

"I realized that it was the start of a new war in Mexico, and that the internet was the new paradigm," Escorcia told Motherboard in an interview at a cafe in Mexico City's historic center. Escorcia has since become an expert on bots and trolls in Mexico, running a blog called LoQueSigue , or "What Follows," to which he publishes data, analyzes hashtags and trends on Twitter, and maps the source of tweets. He also shares information about social media strategies for activists.

"So many people who have been threatened on Twitter stop publishing critical things online, they stop going to protests, and, even worse, sometimes they stop going outside," Escorcia told me. He added that the widespread belief that the Mexican police won't protect activists—even those facing death threats—exacerbates the problem.

"The troll takeover of Twitter is deeply concerning in the context of the wider human rights crisis in Mexico," said Tanya O'Carroll, a technology and human rights adviser for Amnesty International who recently published an investigation of the political impact of bots and trolls in Mexico. "The emerging pattern of well-funded and sophisticated cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns online are fueling this climate of fear and silencing those who speak out."

O'Carroll refers to what many consider bots as trolls or troll farms, since there are actual humans controlling them—though sometimes the trolls are behind hundreds of accounts at the same time.

On March 8, 2016, freelance journalist Andrea Noel, tweeted a surveillance video of a man who had lifted up her skirt and pulled down her underwear while she walking down the street in a hip, upscale neighborhood in Mexico City. Noel tweeted the video with the message "women should be able to walk safely" and requested that people help identify her attacker. Her timeline was immediately flooded with threats from both bots and trolls that included both her location and photos of armed men. Trolls also appeared to tell Noel that she was a "slut" who "deserves to be raped" for wearing the dress.

"I have reported dozens of accounts that have sent me death threats, and nothing has happened."

LoQueSigue published data clouds showing at least 20,000 mentions of Noel's Twitter account in just one day. Many of the accounts had few followers, no photos, and failed to maintain their conversations like a real person would—all prime indicators that the accounts were operated by bots. When a laser shined through Noel's apartment window and landed on her forehead, she decided it was time to leave Mexico City. She'd eventually settle in Tijuana.