  The rates of a hindered molecular rotation induced by tunneling electrons are
evaluated using scattering theory within the sudden approximation. Our approach
explains the excitation of copper phthalocyanine molecules (CuPc) on Cu(111) as
revealed in a recent measurement of telegraph noise in a scanning tunneling
microscopy (STM) experiment [Schaffert \textit{et al.}, Nat. Mat. {\bf 12}, 223
(2013)]. A complete explanation of the experimental data is performed by
computing the geometry of the adsorbed system, its electronic structure and the
energy transfer between tunneling electrons and the molecule's rotational
degree of freedom. The results unambiguously show that tunneling electrons
induce a frustrated rotation of the molecule. In addition, the theory
determines the spatial distribution of the frustrated rotation excitation,
confirming the striking dominance of two out of four molecular lobes in the
observed excitation process. This lobe selectivity is attributed to the
different hybridizations with the underlying substrate.
