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What began as a temporary blockade in Venezuela of one of the most popular social networks in the world, seems to have become an indefinite blockade. On Thursday, August 8, Nicolás Maduro sentenced the cessation of Twitter (now X) in Venezuela “temporarily”. He initially blocked it for 10 days, but almost a month after the measure, it is still not possible to access X in Venezuela, at least not without using VPN.
The decision to block X comes in the wake of the public confrontation between Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter, and Maduro, who declared the tycoon as his archenemy responsible for an attempted “cyber coup” after his alleged electoral victory.
The paradox in this case is that, after the blockade, Venezuelan civil society is more active than ever in a social network where conversation had previously been practically monopolized on a regular basis by chavismo.
Chavismo blocked but civil society ignored it
For many years (2021, 2022 and 2023), the ruling party strategically and systematically polluted the conversation on Twitter, in the midst of what, according to them, was the response to what they considered to be a communicational war. Openly, the X account linked to the Ministry of Communication and Information (MIPPCI) has dictated the guidelines to position trends through the “hashtag of the day”, amplifying propaganda and disinformation with the help of the famous “Tuiteros de la Patria” and networks of pro-government accounts that sought to minimize the voices of protest from civil society.
After the presidential elections of July 29, this has been changing… After the blocking of X in Venezuela, civil society has managed to grow in the positioning of socio-political narratives and tags in this social network. A ProBox analysis of the conversation between August 9 and September 1 reflects this.
During this period in which access to X has been blocked and Chavism was “ordered” to stop using the network, 35 socio-political trends were positioned in the country, which accumulated 1.8 million messages; most of them (17) were driven solely by civil society, grouping 70.11% of the tweets.
It’s not just X: beyond blocking
Maduro’s crusade is not only against X. Most social networks have been labeled as “fascist”, “imperialist” and “conspirators” by Nicolás Maduro.
What is Maduro’s current war with social networks? Why are they now the enemy when months ago he asked all his followers to be present on them, to follow him, to like him? What happened and what does the decision to block Twitter in Venezuela really reveal?
Despite the success that Chavismo had in breaking into and contaminating the socio-political conversation in the different social networks, civil society (before X’s blockade) began to be more active in the digital conversation.
Before, during and after the elections, civil society engaged in the search for and dissemination of information on digital platforms. Not only did they talk about the process, but X also served as a network to denounce the disproportionate violence of the government against dissidents in Venezuela.
Between July 15 and August 8 (before the blockade), socio-political trends positioned in Venezuela totaled around 4.7 million messages. Of these, civil society and independent media generated 36.92% of tweets, while the government generated 36.16%.
This represents a historical milestone in our registry, if we take into account that chavismo usually dominates the conversation in the socio-political trends of X, contaminating the network with propaganda, disinformation and fake news. In 2023, the ruling party positioned 81.15% of the trends and 95.25% of the tweets.
Evidencing how civil society is retaking the digital trench advantage by actively promoting protest labels against arbitrary detentions, rejecting the electoral results announced by the CNE loyal to Maduro, demanding respect for human rights and denouncing the failures of basic services.
An example of this is #MaduroSecuestraNiños, a digital campaign that denounces the escalation of terrible human rights violations in the country; especially the arbitrary detention of minors after the July 28 elections. This hashtag was positioned on Sunday, September 1st and remained as a trend until the early hours of September 3rd, adding more than 380,000 messages. According to our records, this is shaping up to be one of the biggest trends of the year and in a sample analyzed by ProBox, around 99% of these tweets interacting with it were made by real users.
What X represents in Venezuela
According to DataReportal’s Global Digital 2024 Report, Venezuela has 21.37 million active mobile cellular connections at the beginning of 2024, equivalent to 73.4 percent of the total population. Of this sample, 14.05 million active social network user identities were counted in January of this year.
While Facebook has 14.05 million users in Venezuela, Instagram 8.15 million and TikTok 12.35 million users; X would be among the last in number of users, with 2.31 million. However, it is in this social network where more information is shared and used for reporting and access to independent publications, replacing the role of entertainment that other platforms usually have.
The blocking of X then represents the elimination of access to the social network that is most targeted to the informed public in Venezuela. Many opinion leaders congregate in this social network and amplify these messages among people who see them as important referents and who may or may not be in X.
In addition, with this measure Venezuela becomes the eighth country in which its governments block Elon Musk’s social network. The list includes North Korea, Iran, China, Myanmar, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Brazil and Venezuela.
Most of these countries have authoritarian regimes in which citizens’ freedoms are compromised and freedom of expression is virtually non-existent, according to the latest Freedom House report.
But the regime not only blocks X but also institutionalizes online surveillance and persecution with the creation, last August 12, of the National Cybersecurity Council, a new entity whose objective is to formulate cybersecurity policies, including “plans and programs for computer security, technological surveillance and control of telematic incidents”.
In this way, Maduro seeks to open in Venezuela a new chapter of surveillance in social networks, expanding censorship, persecution and restriction of the right to freedom of expression. What remains to be seen is whether these measures work and silence the voice of the citizenry or whether, on the contrary, as in the case of the blocking of X, they leave free spaces for citizens to evade censorship and resume digital protest.
