Peñabot

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the inauguration of a Honda factory in Celaya.

Peñabots is the name given to what analysts believe to be a network of automated accounts on social media used by Mexican government to spread pro-government propaganda and to marginalize dissenting opinions in social media. The bots were first noticed in the 2012 elections when they were used to disseminate opinions in support of Enrique Peña Nieto in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.^[1] During Peña Nieto's subsequent presidency, analysts have noted that Peñabots are used to overpower trending topics that critique government, to flood trending government critical hashtags with spam, and to create fake trends by pushing alternative hashtags, and to push smear campaigns and threats against government critical activists and journalists.^[2] Peñabots can be distinguished because their pattern of activity is distinct from that of normal interaction activity in social networks.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]}

According to Aristegui Noticias, their usage goes against the articles 6th and 134 of the Mexican Constitution, the ones used by the current government cost an estimated 80 million pesos monthly fee, which is paid with money extracted form the citizens taxes. Facebook currently holds approximately 640'321 Peñabots, while Twitter requires less.^[9]

In March 31, 2016 in an article published by magazine Bloomberg Business Week a Colombian, a hacker named Andrés Sepúlveda claimed to have haven paid $600'000 pesos, by the "Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)" for hacking files (including phone calls, e-mails and strategies) pertaining Peña Nieto's rivals respective political campaigns, and also manipulate social media to create fake news against his opponents with 30'000 fakes twitter accounts whom helped him create fake trending topics, and the perception of public enthusiasm towards Peña Nieto's 2012 presidential campaign. The election day he claims to have been watching a Live feed on Bogota, Colombia and to start destroying evidence (USBs, cellphones, computers) right after Peña Nieto was declared winner. He said he was helped by a team of 6 hackers, which he leaded.^[10][11] He also claims to have helped hack elections from other Latin American countries including Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Venezuela, but said his Mexican operation was "the most complex by far". ^[12]The hacker is on a 10 year prison sentence for confessing and proving crimes on helping the campaign of Ivan Zuloagawithin his native Colombia. While Juan José Rendón whom Sepúlveda describes as his accomplice hasn't been proved guilty and still remains free.^{[13][14][15][16]} The National Action Party (PAN) requested an investigation,^[17] but on May 4th, 2016 the Consejo General del Instituto Nacional Electoral (General Council of the National Electoral Institute) discarded the investigation describing it as "frivolous" and that it was based on a single journalistic note. presidential counselor Ciro Murayama said there wasn't enough evidence to lead an investigation, and that they would sue PAN for promoting unjustified investigations, leading to sourness between both political parties.^[18]

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