Human trolls which are particularly active on Twitter in Costa Rica. Prominent strategies include defamation and harassment attempts, attacks on the government and the promotion of social unrest. As one interviewee put it, on Twitter a “war is raging between progressive groups and an army of religious trolls.”24 Another interviewee argued: “The real division is not necessarily religion, but it has to do with human rights and social topics. Abortion is a prime example. Even if activist groups do not have a chance to get anywhere in terms of a change in policies, they use social media to feed and mobilize their hard core base to remind them what they are all about.”25 Trolls have also been active on Facebook. A well-known independent Costa Rican journalist, radio host and youtuber complained in February 2018 to his 55,000 followers about a troll intimidation attack by Fabricio Alvarado’s campaign after he posted an opinion piece supporting gay rights. The troll attack led to his account being frozen by Facebook for 24 hours.26 Alvarado’s supporters, in turn, have accused the government of spying and attacking their social media networks. A former parliamentary advisor to legislator Harllan Hoepelman from the PRN (now PR) complained to Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court in February 2020 that, by the means of trolls, the government’s controversial former Presidential Data Analysis Unit (UPAD) reported and blocked his social media pages. Both political parties and the government deny supporting online trolls. The Prosecutor’s Office (“Ministerio Público”) is investigating, but thus far without any concrete results nor a formal accusation. In sum, attacks on Twitter and Facebook in Costa Rica have lacked the level of sophistication seen elsewhere in the world. Thus far, the TSE has not detected active networks of Twitter bots that are deployed ahead of or during an election to shape or affect a candidate’s image. 27 One interviewee mentioned: “If there is any attempt of bots, they are done badly in Costa Rica. For example, in one instance 10 accounts sent the exact same text, so these are easily identified. But any such attempts are disjointed. Theoretically, bots could have much greater impact, but I am not sure this is true for small countries, such as Costa Rica. Here politics is local – so if lies are being spread, for example about immigrants, this travels wide and fast over WhatsApp without the use of bots.”28 Similarly, sophisticated “deepfakes”, in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else to manipulate content, have not yet been generated in Costa Rica for political propaganda purposes. Instead, political activists have usually used existing imagery from elsewhere, making it easy to identify as false. In April 2020, for example, a false picture of supposedly Nicaraguan migrants entering Costa Rica via Boca Tapada was shared widely via Facebook and WhatsApp. In reality, the photo showed a group of Central American migrants crossing the river Suchiate to get from Guatemala to Mexico on their way to the US. It had been published by the AFP a few months earlier. Numerous similar examples have been identified by La Nación. Finally, the systematic use of social media influencers (paid or unpaid) by political parties or other political actors to amplify their messages, has not been an issue in Costa Rican elections to date. Social Media Platforms Facebook is by far the frontrunner of all social media platforms in Costa Rica for any cyber troop activity. Surveys since the 2014 election have showed that 70% of voters have used 91