A Washington, DC-based PR firm linked to the US government and Democratic Party, CLS Strategies, ran a fake news network on Facebook and Instagram, spreading propaganda for Bolivia’s coup regime and the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and Mexico.
by Ben Norton
Part 4 - DC PR firm spreads right-wing propaganda by posing as disgruntled leftists
CLS Strategies’ Bolivia propaganda was similar to its disinformation campaign against Venezuela. The firm created Facebook pages promoting the coup leader Jeanine Áñez with titles like “Everyone with Áñez.”
The PR firm also set up a page called “Camacho Lovers Santa Cruz,” devoted to the far-right goon squad leader, Luis Fernando Camacho, a businessman from Bolivia’s wealthiest city who started his political career in a neo-fascist Christian paramilitary group founded by former Nazi collaborators.
Another page targeted Bolivian women specifically. With the name “Free Bolivian Women,” this Facebook profile posted propaganda attempting to link elected former President Evo Morales and his allies to organized crime, a common yet baseless talking point of the right-wing opposition.
Some of the CLS Strategies propaganda relied on more devious techniques. A Facebook page the company oversaw was called “MAS for Bolivia,” and sought to drive a wedge in between Bolivians who had previously voted for the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party and the former President Evo Morales, who was overthrown in the 2019 coup.
On Instagram, the CLS disinformation campaign was similarly duplicitous. In addition to running parallel accounts with some of the same names as the Facebook pages, CLS created profiles posing as disenchanted supporters of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro.
One Instagram account was titled “Maduro Style,” and included as its bio, “Maduro, motherland, and death.” Another Instagram profile was named “A True Madurista,” or a true supporter of Maduro. (“Madurista” is however not a term used by actual leftists in Venezuela; it is mostly an insult used by the opposition to attack President Maduro and his supporters.)
An even more dishonest Instagram account overseen by the US PR firm was called “VTV Journalists.” This page posed as former insiders from Venezuela’s state broadcaster VTV, falsely claiming to be an “account of journalists fired from VTV in a humiliating way, but with good contacts inside.”
These pages show how Washington-based CLS infowarriors posed as Venezuelan critical Chavistas and disgruntled Bolivian leftists to attract progressives who had supported Chávez, Maduro, and Morales, but to mislead them and warp their views by exposing them to opposition disinformation.
Conservatives already supported these right-wing opposition forces in Venezuela and Bolivia, so the PR firm was clearly seeking to mislead and propagandize left-wing sympathizers.
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How do you write an article about someone and spell their name wrong the entire time. While also including a video that spells it correctly. Amateur
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