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Given the scenario prior to the presidential election in Venezuela, we analyze the political campaign online and we dedicate ourselves to dismantle the manipulation, propaganda, disinformation and censorship that they wanted to impose in the Venezuelan digital environment.
In our most recent report on the Venezuelan digital conversation entitled “#ElectoralAlgorithm: Social Media ahead of the Venezuelan Presidential Elections” we reveal the changes experienced within social media platforms and the new way in which actors relate to each other.
From attacks on the candidates of the opposition primary in 2023, through propaganda promoted by government agencies in favor of Nicolás Maduro as a candidate, to the intensification of electoral disinformation against María Corina and Edmundo González in the months leading up to the election, the ProBox report sheds light on what happens, happened and continues to happen in the Venezuelan digital ecosystem.
In 2023 Twitter slows down but chavismo wins the day
Twitter, one of the few spaces that Venezuelan civil society has to protest, denounce and receive information from independent media was profoundly altered with the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk, the platform changed much more than its name to X.
One of the biggest signs of the changes occurring in X is in Venezuela’s socio-political activity. During 2023, ProBox registered 34.2% fewer trends than in 2022, the second consecutive year in which socio-political activity on the network decreased.
However, in 2023 and so far in 2024, the regime again dominated the conversation. MIPPCI once again led the Venezuelan trending momentum with the consultative referendum on the Essequibo as its main topic in 2023 with 57 hashtags and more than 6.5 million messages, while economic sanctions came in second place.
The digital electoral race started in 2023
In 2023. we identified 115 trends with electoral narratives, 14% of the year’s socio-political tags. With about 3,582,622 messages.
The ruling party dominated the electoral theme with 68.70% of the trends (79 tags) and almost 87% of the messages (3,116,038 tweets appx.). The opposition only managed to position 26.09% of the trends (30 tags), and 4.5% of the tweets with 161,114 approximately.
The numerical superiority of the Officialism is mainly due to the MIPPCI, with 47.83% of the trends (55 tags) and 81.22% of the messages; that is, around 2,909,704 electoral tweets contain trends promoted by this governmental entity.
Two of the most important events of 2023 were the opposition primaries in October and the consultative referendum on the Essequibo in December; rekindling the electoral conversation in the country, the disqualifications of candidates, the vote abroad and the resources used in political campaigns.
The referendum on the Essequibo was the most massive topic in the 2023 electoral conversation in X with around 1.6 million tweets in 55 trends, 41 of them promoted by MIPPCI. However, this campaign had a massive boom in November and then a significant decline, despite the consultation having taken place.
2024: digital battle for the Miraflores chair becomes official
Between January and May 2024, 290 socio-political trends were positioned in X with around 7,297,888 messages. Once again, the Officialism dominates this conversation with 238 tags and 79.12% of the tweets (5,774,182 appx.).
As in the general conversation, the ruling party has generated the most trends and electoral messages with 90 tags and approximately 2,218,330 tweets; that is, 95.17% of the electoral messages come from the Officialism.
What is truly remarkable is that 103 of those 290 trends are electoral, almost the same amount that we registered during the whole of 2023. These accumulated 2,330,901 messages.
MIPPCI has promoted the most trends with 63, almost all in support of Maduro’s reelection despite being a government entity, and the campaign in favor of Nicolás Maduro is the most recurrent narrative between January and May 2024. With 75 trends and around 2,019,805 tweets.
Diosdado Cabello leads the attacks on María Corina Machado
As in 2023, the attack and disqualification tendencies against María Corina Machado come from Diosdado Cabello and his program “Con el Mazo Dando”.
This narrative was the third most recurrent in the electoral conversation of the first 5 months of the year. In addition to Machado, Edmundo González also received two trends against him promoted by this actor.
Cabello promoted 7 trends in total against Machado and González and 6 trends in support of Maduro, being the opposition the protagonists of his conversation in the first 5 months of the year.
TikTok gains prominence in the socio-political conversation
One of the most important findings revealed is the 2024 positioning of political videos on TikTok.
Between January and May 2024, we noticed a change. We recorded 1,380 contents as trending, 974 of them were unique videos; 950 were non-political but, unlike 2023, 24 videos were political. Once again, entertainment videos were the most present in non-political narratives….
TikTok has become the new platform preferred by the Venezuelan government, especially by Nicolás Maduro for campaigning, live broadcasts, challenges and “humorous” content on this network. And this is no coincidence.
Although from September 2023 to February 2024 there were no official videos in the trends of this network; on March 12 we identified the first video of Maduro within the most popular content of the platform.
As of May 31, at least 4 videos from the president’s account have become trending on TikTok Venezuela.
“The only way to prevent the government’s communication hegemony from continuing to expand to more digital spaces, which are one of the main windows for citizen denunciation, is to support the efforts of civil society, journalists and researchers to document and make visible the censorship and manipulation of information in Venezuela,” says the director of ProBox.
Remember that you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok as @ProBoxVE, to find more information on these topics.
Read the full report here Go to all articles
