example, highlighted by Snopes (Alpert, 2018), described rumours about Correa’s party tampering with votes via messages spread on the popular messaging platform, WhatsApp. Whilst most social media accounts are fake and human-led, there is some evidence that bots were widely used during the 2017 general elections. As noted by Rofrío et al. (2019) in their analysis of tweets between January and April 2017, there is evidence that bot activities could be linked to most running candidates and political parties (Movimiento CREO & Movimiento SUMA, Movimiento Alianza País, Partido Social Cristiano, and Izquierda Democrática & Movimiento Unidad Popular & Movimiento de Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik). Most of these accounts were recently created. However, it is worth noting that “almost 46% of all bots collected supported the official candidates, Lenin Moreno, and other candidates, such as Guillermo Lasso, received almost a tweet against for every tweet in favor” (Rofrío et al., 2019). Additionally, Pavliuc (2020) studied the decade of the network of Twitter accounts associated with PAIS Alliance. While their disinformation operations were quiet between 2010 and 2016 and more active between 2016 and 2019, it was in 2018 when activity was boosted by recently created accounts that focused on both unique and popular hashtags. Moreover, in 2019 Twitter removed a network of 1,019 (mostly fake) PAIS Alliance political party-related accounts. They used amplification techniques—"hashtag manipulation and retweet spam"—to spread negative content about Moreno’s administration (Twitter Safety, s. f.). Most recently, disinformation and trolling campaigns to drive division and suppress speech during the COVID-19 crisis have also been linked to pro-Correa fake accounts. They mainly originated outside Ecuador—mostly in Mexico and Venezuela. Although there is no evidence connecting these accounts with specific individuals, these locations represent the two countries where the people closest to Correa, and responsible for the previously-identified "troll centres" during his presidency, had gone before the closure of State borders («Las noticias falsas, el virus particular de Ecuador que achacan a correístas», 2020). National intelligence sources attribute these actions to Correist-circles abroad. The Facebook announcement of the removal of Ecuador-based Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages in July 2020 demonstrated the continuing practice of public opinion manipulation in social media. The operations were mostly aimed at amplifying content and showing support and/or criticism of certain topics or political actors. These accounts targeted Latin-American countries, mainly promoting left-wing candidates and criticizing specific leaders of the opposition (Gleicher, 2020; DFRLab, 2020). They were activated sporadically for specific civic events. After examining the creation dates and content of the pages, DFRLab (2020) found that “several of the network’s assets operated almost exclusively during presidential campaigns in South America, including in Chile (2017), Ecuador (2017), Venezuela (2018), Argentina (2019), and Uruguay (2019)”. In Ecuador they promoted content supportive of Lenin Moreno, who was candidate for Alianza País party, but after he took office, he distanced himself from Correa. Since then, the network posted attacks against Moreno (Ibid.). These Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages were related to off-platform websites (eg. shared same user account for Google Analytics and server), which shared similar content (Ibid.). They also used duplicate and fake accounts, using profile pictures created through artificial-intelligence and also pictures of celebrities. 119