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While chavismo claims that Maduro is being censored in his social networks and that he has fewer views, “likes” or reproductions in his publications because the algorithm is being manipulated in the midst of a “brutal war” that seeks to minimize him in social networks, an investigation by ProBox proved the opposite.
The reality is that the policies of the platforms, including TikTok, have led to the dismantling of networks of accounts that acted inorganically to amplify the messages of the ruling party, an action that violates these rules. In addition, the claim by chavismo of alleged censorship to carry out paid online advertising is also false. ProBox proved, with a search in Meta’s library, matrix of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, that advertising in favor of Maduro continues to be paid without any problem.
Then, why so much noise and denunciation of censorship? What does the government intend to do by deploying a campaign online with hashtags such as #NicoLike and #YoSigoAMaduro? Four experts on the matter give their comments.
The executive director and founder of ProBox, Mariví Marin, the journalist and cyberactivist Luis Carlos Díaz, the founder of the NGO Redes Ayuda, Melanio Escobar and the general director of ProBox, Estefanía Da Silva, delve into the issue of the management of the chavista discourse in social networks and the reasons why a campaign is being promoted in which the new enemy seems to be an algorithm.
Are chavismo and Maduro being censored on social media?
The answer from the experts is clear: No. For the founder of the NGO Redes Ayuda, Melanio Escobar, there is no evidence that Chavismo is being censored in any way in social networks beyond the lack of engagement they have with the audience. “In fact, the propaganda of Nicolás Maduro’s regime is one of the most disseminated on social networks. Nicolás Maduro has been able to bypass all platform regulations in order to position himself digitally.”
The decrease denounced by the Maduro regime on platforms such as TikTok responds to some extent to the detection and elimination by the platform of a network of about 600 accounts used to amplify content in an inauthentic way.
Cyberactivist Luis Carlos Diaz elaborates on the subject and points out that this already happened to them with Twitter (X), Facebook and Instagram. “They are again committing excesses of non-organic campaigns, profiles that violate community rules and unethical practices online,” he notes.
“Seeing this from a power group, which also controls newsprint, television, radio and the entire public media system, shows that they continue to insist on communicational hegemony and think of the platforms in a military way, with obedience, command line, verticality, single thinking and propaganda and counter-propaganda practices that have behind them advisors, resources, time, money, talent, personnel and a lot of things that are not being used to address the humanitarian emergency or public service problems,” she assures.
For the general director of ProBox, Estefanía Da Silva, the elimination of accounts that promote content in a coordinated and repetitive way is extremely significant in the fight against disinformation and massive propaganda and evidences the communicational operations behind officialdom to impose its discourse and take over the digital space. However, it is also the perfect excuse for them to talk about “censorship”.
“The elimination of influence operations by the massive and coordinated amplification of content in networks, is not censorship. Shutting down traditional media, persecuting journalists and seeking to impose digital narratives at any cost is,” says Da Silva.
How to evaluate the new narrative of chavismo online around the #NicoLike campaign?
For Luis Carlos Diaz, this is a campaign that seeks to replace the spirit of the networks, which is the spontaneous liking for relevant, useful or funny publications, with a military logic, of obedience and passivity, which puts hundreds or thousands of people who depend on public budget to function as automatons who must watch videos, mark them as favorites, forward, save, comment, tag and everything they are ordered to do, not because they like it, but because it is their job.
“Unfortunately this demonstrates many things, such as a pattern of corruption, of little understanding of the Internet, Chavismo’s contempt for the people and also installs the idea that salaries and bonuses in Venezuela are so low that a group of people can be cheaper than bot farms. But the most serious thing is that it seeks to deceive the algorithms of the networks to believe that a content is relevant or useful because of the stream of inorganic interactions it receives”, assures the cyberactivist.
For the CEO of ProBox, the campaign around #NicoLike also shows another facet of chavismo propaganda, which is to want to get closer to young people, because despite having historically represented one of the largest masses of political participation in the country, the party bases and student leadership have been gradually disappearing from the socio-political arena; either by migration or by the apathy that has been generated in recent years to political events.
“Maduro has been able to take advantage of these insights, not only with his great management of TikTok, which has been more attached to comedy, dances and joy over political content, but also with the launching of new spaces such as his podcast,” says Da Silva.
Is it possible for chavismo to control the discourse in social networks?
For experts, even if chavismo wants to, it cannot establish a communicational hegemony in social networks because they cannot control and take over all reference groups and conversations.
“They only make noise in their bubbles. Other people can enjoy autonomously and freely their own content and references ignoring the single thought troop,” says Luis Carlos Diaz.
For his part, Melanio Escobar highlights the fact that more and more Venezuelans are living outside the reach of Maduro’s regime, thanks to the migration caused by the complex humanitarian emergency, which gives them an environment where freedom of expression is not criminalized or persecuted and more and more creators are generating content that denounces the current government.
“In that sense I think it is unlikely that they can somehow hegemonize the conversation about the government’s actions within the country. What we are going to see is an increase in the application of arbitrary laws such as the law against hate, the law against fascism and many others that seek to somehow curtail the will of people to express themselves freely,” said the director of Redes Ayuda.
For Estefania Da Silva, it is more complex to control a social network such as TikTok, which is highly adapted to each user and is not the same for everyone. This personalization of social networks is what makes the hegemony in communications that Maduro’s government is betting on not being achieved in social networks.
“The strategy remains the same that we have evidenced in ProBox since 2018, amplify content in a coordinated way to bombard the spaces with the narratives that the State wants and silence any other relevant topic that seeks to permeate the networks”, assures Da Silva.
For Luis Carlos Diaz, audiences go to the Internet in a dispersed way to try to nourish themselves with information. In this scenario, chavismo promotes “coordinated campaigns every day with disinformation, hires national and international influencers to give relevance to the hegemony or to the story of well-being and happiness and creates profiles of both defenders of the revolution and supposed extreme, hopeless and ‘anti-everything’ opponents to participate in different levels of conversation in networks with seeded profiles”.
What can we expect from chavismo as the next social media strategy in the context of the presidential elections?
For the CEO of ProBox it is possible to expect an increase in the use of new social networks beyond X to promote electoral narratives, especially TikTok, considering that already even on open television (VTV) they do broadcasts in conjunction with Maduro’s “lives” on this social platform.
“In addition, the amplification of inauthentic content and disinformation tends to increase a lot in electoral processes, precisely because of the lack of independent and transparent spaces to share information”, says Da Silva, who also emphasizes that there will be a relevant role in the use of artificial intelligence to amplify propaganda and disinformation.
“If we are guided by what we saw in the Esequibo campaign, the so-called influencers will also return to generate content in favor of Maduro, create TikTok trends with the endless number of songs created by the regime and the violation of the electoral regulations at the level of political campaign with the use of government entities, state officials and public services promoting the reelection”, Estefan{ia Da Silva emphasizes.
For his part, journalist and cyberactivist Luis Carlos Diaz points out that systematic repression will continue with harsher or softer methods, depending on the needs of power in order to generate exemplary punishments, silences, undermining of dissident voices, fear and inhibition of participation in digital and physical spaces.
“The erratic strategy of copying or riding on the opposition’s agenda is also expected to continue, in addition to an increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence inputs to generate disinformation. We may continue to see coordinated and seemingly spontaneous campaigns to promote hopeless narratives,” he says.
Luis Carlos Diaz also points out that the use of money and public resources will be present in the campaign, in the midst of a “wave of international visitors, electoral tourists and other fauna that appear in campaigns; only now they are associated to contents that can give some visibility online”.
