Guatemala Introduction Guatemala has been facing major political challenges for a substantial period of time. Over the years, these have ranged from an armed conflict that lasted more than thirty years (1960 – 1996) to the continuing influence of criminal organizations that have gained control of state institutions. Most recently, the country has been immersed in corruption scandals and the undermining of checks and balances. The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was created in 2006 by the United Nations and Guatemala as an independent body to support national institutions in their investigations, such as that of the bribery and tax evasion network that involved the political elite, and prosecution of serious crimes, including the genocide trials against Efraín Rios Montt. In early 2019, however, President Jimmy Morales unilaterally terminated the agreement whilst accusing the CICIG of acting against the constitution. Since 2012 there has been evidence of surveillance programs targeting journalists, and in 2017 the media outlet Nómada was subject to DDoS attacks over a period of several months, one of them they had published a damning account of government inaction and negligence related to a fire at a children’s public shelter (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2020). Since 2016 coordinated social media activities aiming to create disinformation and attack the opposition have boosted operations of what have locally been termed as net centres. Guatemala has low rates of internet access, with only 52.7% of the population online («Informe», 2019). Facebook is the most used social media platform, while Twitter has a low level of penetration. Social media, however, is not the main source of information about politics, with only 9.2% of the population using it for this purpose («Informe», 2019). Nonetheless, during Jimmy Morales’ administration (2016-2020), political violence on social media was constant and there were episodes of “coordinated, state aligned campaigns of online disinformation” (Abbas et al., 2019) and harassment and organized online attacks on opposition figures, especially environmental and indigenous activists (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2020). Abbas et al. (2019) highlight the serious risk posed by online harassment in the national context of historical violence and genocide. Indeed, their report suggests that standards for moderation on social media platforms lack contextualized rules. Whilst the “vocabulary of coded speech” of attacks and harassment might be considered unproblematic for content moderators, in Guatemala, where “violence is condoned and perpetrators are often not charged or prosecuted”, this vocabulary might be dangerous (Abbas et al., 2019). Finally, it is worth noting that the legal framework in Guatemala does not incorporate digital attacks as types of crimes nor does it counterbalance potential attempts of organized online harassment campaigns (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2020). An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity in Guatemala Organizational Form In early 2019, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) released a report on bots and net centres. They had already been in operation for years. However, while Luis Assardo mentioned initial operations already evident in 2008 in online newspaper comments (Los Netcenters: Negocio de manipulación—Luis Assardo—Medium, s. f.), more sustained social media manipulation has been recorded since 2016 («Informe», 2019). Since 163