Manifestations

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose re-election is contested, has criticised the role of social media after protests broke out the day after the head of state officially announced a new term.

“They used the electoral process to […] spreading hatred on TikTok and Instagram. I accuse TikTok and Instagram for their responsibility in installing hatred to divide Venezuelans,” thundered Nicolas Maduro, demanding regulation of social networks in order to avoid a “criminal cyberfascist coup d’état.”

The latter denounced content promoting “hate”, “fascism”, “division” and “threats”, while the government also uses these networks extensively, directly with official accounts or indirectly with its relays and supporters.

“I will break off relations with WhatsApp”

These platforms have indeed played a major role in spreading content about the protests following the July 28 presidential election. Among the most used hashtags on the X network after the election were #fraud, #VenezuelaLibre and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s mantra #HastaElFinal (until the end). At the other end of the spectrum, #GanoMaduro (Maduro won) appeared.

They are “conscious multipliers of hatred and fascism,” he further denounced, accusing the magnate Elon Musk of having been behind the “massive hacking” of the National Electoral Council (CNE) which prevented, according to him, the publication of the count of all the votes in the election.

“I will sever relations with WhatsApp,” he said during a rally at the presidential palace on Monday. “WhatsApp is being used to threaten Venezuela, and so I will remove WhatsApp from my phone forever.” He called for a “voluntary, gradual and radical” withdrawal of the app, owned by the American company Meta along with Facebook and Instagram. In his show on public television, live in front of the cameras, he then uninstalled the app, which is widely used in Venezuela.

“Platforms for information”

“Users have used this platform as a window to inform themselves and others about what is happening in the country,” explains David Aragort, a digital security expert at the NGO Redes Ayuda.

“Live streams of things that are not found in traditional national media have started to appear. This is not the first time the president has criticized social media,” he adds.

“It’s not completely unreasonable to think that they might try to block access to WhatsApp. Cuba did it in 2021 at the time of massive protests,” Aragort points out.

“To intimidate us”

María Corina Machado, banned from television and radio in her country, communicates exclusively through social networks. “They want to intimidate us so that we do not communicate because, if we were isolated, we would be much weaker,” she denounced Tuesday in an audio message broadcast on social networks.

The heir to Hugo Chavez, in power since 2013, was declared the winner with 52% of the vote, but according to the opposition, it was his candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who won the election with 67% of the vote.

The unrest that followed the proclamation of the outgoing president’s victory left 24 dead, according to a report updated Tuesday by human rights organizations. Nicolas Maduro announced the death of two members of the National Guard and the arrest of more than 2,000 people.

The protests, often in working-class neighborhoods that previously supported Chavismo (Hugo Chavez’s socialist-inspired doctrine), were widely broadcast on social media, while most traditional media remained silent for fear of reprisals from the government.