Political news website La Silla Vacia has been linked to a far-right propaganda campaign that has been paid for by some of Colombia’s most reactionary corporations.
The campaign, “Project Jupiter,” has been organizing “democracy workshops” for tens of thousands of workers and has been publishing content online to generate “fear / indignation / uncertainty” among voters ahead of the presidential vote.
Among Project Jupiter’s “digital agencies” is La Silla Vacia, according to a flyer that was made public by Raya magazine and the investigative journalism program of public television network RTVC.
In an audio, the director of the propaganda campaign, former Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez, said that “we have digital agencies—namely [libertarian think tank] Libertank and La Silla Vacia—which are enabling us to scale up at an incredible rate.”
Project Jupiter was able to reach 17 million people in all of Colombia’s 32 provinces because of the collaboration of the digital platforms, which also included several public relations firms, Bermudez said.
When asked about the collaboration with La Silla Vacia, the former foreign minister told Raya that Project Jupiter was allowed to publish their content on platforms owned by the political news website.
In a response, La Silla Vacia denied being a part of the propaganda efforts that seek to promote libertarian ideals and dissuade people from voting for the leftist frontrunner in the elections, Ivan Cepeda, and his far-right opponent Abelardo de la Espriella.
According to the website, “these so-called journalistic exposés are part of a smear campaign.”
The scandal broke days after the campaign of far-right candidate Paloma Valencia published images of a meeting between campaign managers and investor of Banco Santander, including La Silla Vacia founder Juanita Leon.
In response to those images, Leon said that she accidentally ended up at the campaign meeting.
La Silla Vacia had already come under fire after Cepeda accused them of being part of an opposition campaign to smear him, a claim also denied by Leon and her influential website.
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