Filer and Fredheim (2016) gave evidence on the use of bots on Twitter during presidential campaigns in 2015 by the two most popular coalitions, Frente para la Victoria and Cambiemos. Two years later, the Electoral Council published a document where it audited the activities of online trolls during the legislative elections, giving evidence on the use of this tactic by several political parties (Cámara Nacional Electoral, s.f.). In 2019 pro-government and antigovernment human and automated accounts amplified content and harassed opposition (Alconada Mon, 2019a). Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Argentina Initial Government Politicians & Parties Private Contractors Civil Society Citizens & Report Agencies Organizations Influencers 2012 Evidence found Parties: Juntos por el Cambridge Analytica, Cambio and Frente de Publiquest, Todos (2019), Unidad Nicestream, Porteña, Unidad Influencia2, Ciudadana, and Becom1, Cambiemos (2017), Gaston Douek Cambiemos and Frente para la Victoria (2015) Politicians who used Gaston Douek's services: Martín Lousteau, Sergio Massa, Juan Schiaretti, Gabriela Michetti, and Omar Perotti Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found. Strategies, Tools, and Techniques In 2018 Amnesty International released a report in which it analyzed tweets engaging with eleven journalists and activists who were attacked intensively on social media. Between October and November 2017, 354,000 tweets engaged with these accounts, and 53.2% of the attacks came from automated accounts (Amnesty International, 2018). The content of these messages discredited political parties and civil organizations, but often would be directed to public institutions, such as the national healthcare system or the judiciary. One campaign promoted the conspiracy theory that chemotherapy was the cause of death of cancer patients, and not cancer itself (Slipczuk, 2019). In 2017, after the disappearance/death of the Argentine activist Santiago Maldonado, social media content was particularly polarized. Whilst the Twitter community associated with the opposition was led by politicians, the most active pro-government accounts were anonymous or fake accounts (Arugete & Calvo, s. f.). Both pro-government and anti-government trolls were highly active during the general election campaign in 2019 and mainly used strategies of trolling and amplification in order to create pro-government and pro-party content (Alconada Mon, 2019a). Over the years a number of fake accounts have accumulated a considerable number of followers and these were crucial for amplification strategies (Arugete & Calvo, s. f.) 10

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