DeZurdaTeam: A Twitter network promotes pro-Cuba hashtags

On October 8, 2020, Twitter announced a takedown of 526 accounts attributed to the Federación de Estudiantil Universitaria, a Cuban nationwide student union based at the University of Havana and affiliated with the Communist Party of Cuba, Cuba’s ruling party since 1965. Twitter shared this network with the Stanford Internet Observatory on September 24, 2020. The network includes 4,802,243 tweets dating back to 2010. The network’s activity primarily occurred between January 2019 and May 2020, when a large number of the accounts were removed by Twitter. The accounts used coordinated tactics organized by a central account, @DeZurdaTeam (translated as LeftHandedTeam or LeftistTeam), to push pro-Cuba hashtags at regular intervals. Key Takeaways:
• While this network was medium sized (526 accounts), it was highly active, posting 4,802,243 tweets, most of which were shared in the last two years.
• The accounts pushed patriotic, pro-Cuba and anti-U.S. content, especially discussing the ongoing U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
• Tweets also supported Pan-American unity, particularly with other Socialist regimes such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
• With the emergence of COVID-19, there were an increasing number of Tweets focused on Cuba’s medical diplomacy. Content related to COVID- 19 promoted the quality of Cuban doctors and the Cuban medical system.
• The largest network unified around “DeZurdaTeam” – both an account and a hashtag – also had a linked Facebook Page, Facebook Group and Instagram page. Users included the hashtag in their profile description along with emojis that may have been used to organize groups within the network.
• DeZurdaTeam used their platform and network to push weekly hashtags encouraging users to share their thoughts on a topic. While the hashtags themselves were generally apolitical, the responses were strongly patriotic in nature.
• Many profiles used stock images, memes or photos created via Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a technology that allows users to create realistic-looking unique human faces, for their profile pictures – characteristics they shared with members of the “DeZurdaTeam” Facebook Group.
• Several of the primary accounts have been restored on Twitter and many more have respawned since the takedown. A Twitter search for #DeZurdaTeam yields hundreds more accounts that use the hashtag in their profile description.