Meta is subverting the Bolivian government while enabling the far right
Supporters of the ruling party are finding themselves deplatformed as the social media giant defends the opposition
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has blocked a slew of accounts and groups as part of its “Adversarial Threat” program.
The social media giant said it “took down three CIB (coordinated inauthentic behavior) networks – in Serbia, Cuba and Bolivia – targeting people in their own countries across many services across the internet and linked to governments or ruling parties in each state.”
But people in Bolivia took issue with this over freedom of speech concerns. According to a local media report from Kawsuchen News, “1,041 Facebook accounts, 450 Pages, 14 Groups and 130 Instagram accounts were deleted in December 2022. All the banned accounts belonged to supporters of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP), the party of government. Those who were banned have not been able to return. The excuse given is to accuse us of ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior.’”
As the report’s author, Oscar Alfaro, pointed out, “the accusation of ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ is a concept based on convenience-oriented algorithms. However, such algorithms cannot discern simple social and group behavior. In the case of Bolivia, activists have utilized social media as a platform to provide an alternative to the national media which is dominated by right-wing groups.”
Many critics have called Anez’s regime fascist, and it’s not hyperbole. Literal Nazis from Germany found a nest in Bolivia after World War II and planted their seeds in the country, particularly in its eastern portion. That is now the primary home base of today’s political opposition, which has committed a litany of human rights abuses.
For instance, the Sacaba massacre, which left 11 people dead and an estimated 98 wounded after police and soldiers fired on protesters who were decrying the undemocratic ouster of former president Evo Morales and the installation of Anez. There was also the Senkata massacre by Anez’s forces, which also left another 11 dead and an estimated 80 wounded.
That same month, family members carried the coffins of those killed in the attacks through the city of La Paz, and Anez ordered a crackdown on the march. Armed militias also burned the Wiphala, a symbol commonly used as a flag representing the indigenous people of the Andes region, in public plazas during the political turmoil. Anez instituted this violence with “Decree 4078,” which was essentially a license to kill protesters that was so blatant it was even denounced by the Western human rights organization, Amnesty International. With this decree, her regime absolved the country’s armed forces of any liability.
That’s not even to mention the violent events that took place before she took power in the first place. After the forced resignation of Victor Borda, a MAS representative, from the post of president of the lower house of Bolivia’s legislature, protesters tortured his brother and burned his family home down.
I spoke to Oscar Alfaro as a follow-up about Meta’s disturbing decision to defend “members of the opposition,” who are still committing acts of violence and insurrection. He told me that “the accusation of so-called inauthentic behavior makes no sense in a social network that promotes groups. The terms of service don’t forbid having friends with the same political views and use the platform to spread factual information and debunk false news.” (Facebook is notorious for allowing fake news to spread in foreign languages other than English due to a lack of qualified staff and a broken AI system).
https://www.rt.com/news/572502-bolivia-meta-fascist-opposition/