For more than a year, at Linterna Verde we worked hand in hand with the Foundation for Press Freedom -FLIP- to understand the dynamics of certain discourses promoted against journalists and media in Colombia through social networks. 

Throughout his administration, President Gustavo Petro has maintained a tense interaction with the press. These crosses have occurred mainly through his X account, from where the president has responded to criticism and media coverage. These responses, as identified in an investigation in partnership with FLIP, have led to digital harassment against journalists, sometimes with signs of a coordination campaign.

While the president's right to freedom of expression is non-negotiable, the use he makes of his X account, where he has 7.8 million followers, gives him the power to condition public discussion and makes him the core of digital conversations. For these reasons, his statements through this medium transcend the mere personal use of a network account.

Our monitoring focused on three viral moments: the use of the hashtag #CaracolMiente, and the expressions "Mossad journalism" and "mafia dolls" used by the president in relation to the media and journalists.

#CaracolMiente: a coordinated strategy

For the first case, we studied the conversation surrounding a Noticias Caracol report, published in August last year, which reported on an alleged support of a drug trafficker and his wife to Petro's presidential campaign in the department of Casanare. On that occasion, the president reacted by accusing the newscast of spreading "completely false" newsand distracting attention from other corruption scandals.

Prior to the date of the report's release, the hashtag #CaracolMiente had been used in a scattered manner on X. However, the day after the president's response, the number of tweets that included the hashtag amounted to 61,500.

A sample of 20,000 tweets with the hashtag allowed observing common traits in the accounts that promoted it, such as having few followers and repeatedly sharing pro-government content. In addition, political figures and influencers close to the government also participated in the trend. A similarity analysis between the contents shared by these accounts showed a high degree of repetition among the messages, suggesting that to position this tag in X there was an inauthentic coordination campaign.

"Mossad journalism"

In June of this year, during a public event at the Francisco de Paula Santander Cadet School, Petro used this expression to refer to "a powerful group" that opposes his policies. The following day, he used this adjective again to respond to an article by journalist María Jimena Duzán about the alleged interference of the brother of Laura Sarabia, the president's main advisor, in state contracting.

Since that tweet, the expression "Mossad" in relation to journalism has been used in 8,600 publications on X. For more than two months, the term was used to disqualify the work of the press and verbally attack journalists.

Mafia dolls: fuel for aggressions against women journalists

Last August, during the inauguration of the new Ombudsman, Iris Marín Ortiz, the president introduced a new expression to disqualify the press. In that space, he referred to "the journalists of power, the dolls of the mafia", as those responsible for installing a discourse against social protest during the National Strike of 2021.

The term, which alludes to a soap opera about women and drug trafficking with the same title, triggered a conversation in X. Over the next few days, there were 300,000 mentions of the term "mafia dolls" in connection with the press.

In the days following this statement, there were nearly 300,000 mentions of the term in connection with the press. While some of these posts included rejections of Petro's speech, most of the conversation was comprised of posts disqualifying and insulting journalists and political analysts.

Although the president later tried to clarify that he was not referring to all journalists, it was his words that prevailed in the debate and provided ammunition for these aggressions. It is impossible to establish a direct causal relationship between the president's statements and the aggressions to the press, however, it is evident the weight of his account in the debate and his role as a node in these conversations. 

The full report is available here.

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