Medellín (Ángel, 2019). Investigative journalism revealed that the company had also been hired for political campaigns in Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. In addition to the activities of private companies, there have also been reports of co-ordinated efforts within the government to orchestrate disinformation efforts. La Liga Contra el Silencio, a Columbian media alliance dedicated to investigative journalism, released a thorough report on a team comprised of public servants from different departments and other pro-government actors who have since September 2019 been coordinating propaganda actions on Twitter (La Liga Contra el Silencio, 2020). Finally, it is worth noting that foreign actors also deployed their own computational propaganda resources in the region. A report by the US State Department concluded that during a one-month period in 2019, Russian-linked Twitter accounts operated in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Chile—countries where mass protests and demonstrations were having place— posting similar messages “within 90 minutes of one another” (Jakes, 2020). Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Colombia Initial Report Government Agencies Politicians Parties 2016 Evidence found Evidence found & Private Contractors Civil Society Citizens & Organizations Influencers Emotions Media Group, Eliminalia Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found. Strategies, Tools, and Techniques During the 2018 elections, the spread of disinformation aroused the concerns of the authorities as well as competing parties. A Twitter user identified a network of websites that was used until early 2018 to disseminate political propaganda. This comprised a chain of different sites focussing on varying themes, including pets, cars, beauty, and other topics (Serrano, 2018). As the election approached, the websites introduced political agendas into their content production. For example, one article on a pet website promoted a candidate’s stance on global warming. Similar propaganda articles were released throughout the entire network of websites. It transpired that the chain of sites was maintained by an advertisement company called Emotions Media Group, which had been hired to promote content production and digital impulsion on behalf of a given party. However, the party has not been identified. As well as the dissemination of material intended to promote the interests of particular candidates and parties, computational propaganda techniques were also used to perpetuate online smear campaigns. While attacks on Iván Duque — candidate for Centro Democrático— were focused on his supposed close links to a corrupt elite, attacks on Gustavo Petro— candidate for Colombia Humana— presented the latter as an ally to Nicolás Maduro’s regime and a terrorist (Argüello, s. f.; Espinel & Rodríguez, 2019). The escalation of negative disinformation campaigns led the candidates to sign a “fake news non-aggression treaty” (Politica El Tiempo, 2018), where they agreed to act respectfully towards each other during campaigns and repudiate any malicious use of disinformation against their adversaries. Nonetheless, misinformation continued to abound on social media. In June 81