100 fake Twitter accounts favoring Cortizo and Carrizo

There are 100 fake Twitter accounts that write content favorable to President Laurentino Cortizo and his Vice President José Gabriel Gaby Carrizo reports La Prensa

The accounts were created in November 2022, as well as in the following January –22 of the total– and last March, when they activated 63.

On average they have less than 2 followers and have made only 2 likes in the time they have been active.

In Venezuela, these accounts published in a coordinated manner in favor of three PSUV candidates who were running for governor in their districts.

In their messages addressed to the Panamanian audience, they praise Vice President Carrizo, while criticizing some of his opponents, such as the presidential candidate for the Popular Party, former President Martín Torrijos.

Venqis, SA, a Panamanian political communication company, and its president André Golabek Sánchez, originally from Brazil and proxy for other companies in the digital world, could have been moving these false accounts.

In its catalog of services for candidates in electoral processes, Venqis offers strategic planning, crisis management and administration of campaigns -including digital ones- and the evaluation of their performance.

In 2022, Twitter took out of the game 352 of the 357 profiles that generated propaganda and misinformation favorable to political leaders and parties, government agencies and initiatives, aimed at audiences in at least four Latin American countries: Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Panama.

The information for this note arose from a study by Cazadores de Fake News (April 2022), in partnership with 23 media outlets and 4 digital research specialists that cover the region, in coordination with the Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation (CLIP).