  Studies of online influence operations, coordinated efforts to disseminate
and amplify disinformation, focus on forensic analysis of social networks or of
publicly available datasets of trolls and bot accounts. However, little is
known about the experiences and challenges of human participants in influence
operations. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 influence
operations participants that contribute to the online image of Venezuela, to
understand their incentives, capabilities, and strategies to promote content
while evading detection. To validate a subset of their answers, we performed a
quantitative investigation using data collected over almost four months, from
Twitter accounts they control.
  We found diverse participants that include pro-government and opposition
supporters, operatives and grassroots campaigners, and sockpuppet account
owners and real users. While pro-government and opposition participants have
similar goals and promotion strategies, they differ in their motivation,
organization, adversaries and detection avoidance strategies. We report the
Patria framework, a government platform for operatives to log activities and
receive benefits. We systematize participant strategies to promote political
content, and to evade and recover from Twitter penalties. We identify
vulnerability points associated with these strategies, and suggest more nuanced
defenses against influence operations.
