On Thursday, a new peak in discord was reached as Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, imposed a 10-day restriction on social media platform X and its owner, Elon Musk. This action emerged amidst controversy over a contested presidential election in the South American nation.
The decree enacted by Maduro, facilitated through the regulator Conatel, suspends operations of the social media platform broadly recognised as Twitter, for a duration of ten days. Maduro levelled accusations against Mr Musk, proclaiming that the tech billionaire was fostering sentiments of hatred, unleashing civil strife, and even causing deaths. “X should vacate Venezuela for 10 days!” declared Maduro in a public address that state-controlled broadcasters aired.
The relationship between Maduro and Musk has been characterised by regular disputes over social media platform X. Musk, founder of the platform, disparagingly compared the Venezuelan leader to a donkey. Conversely, Maduro pointed the finger at Musk for instigating public demonstrations and dissent, particularly in the post-election phase.
An array of aggressive exchanges between the two has unfolded on the social media platform, including mutual acceptance of invitations to engage in physical combat. The Venezuelan president encouraging their televised broadcast.
Maduro’s interim prohibition on this social media platform marks yet another attempt to challenge Big Tech’s supremacy. Earlier this week, the Venezuelan leader spurred his followers to drop WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Meta, in favour of alternate options like Telegram or WeChat. Maduro alleged that WhatsApp was being exploited to intimidate the kin of military and law enforcement personnel.
While WhatsApp opted not to comment on the matter, requests for comment from X have also gone unanswered as of yet.
Following the presidential election of July 28th, Venezuela’s electoral body declared Maduro the victor, having secured a purported 51 per cent of the vote tally. However, the official vote counts have yet to be released.
The announcement spurred widespread allegations of vote-rigging and triggered protests across multiple social media platforms. Reports from a native advocacy collective, the Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict, indicate that the ensuing protests led to at least 23 deaths.
In the aftermath of the electoral announcement, Venezuelans both domestically and internationally initiated protests, demanding that Maduro concede defeat and validate the victory of opposition contender Edmundo González.
According to Maria Corina Machado and Mr Gonzalez who lead the opposition, they believe that they have secured a victory with over seven million votes in the recent election, with Mr Maduro lagging at 3.3 million – a result that aligns with independent exit polls. Their claim, however, is not recognised by countries such as the US, Argentina and Chile, who are pushing for voting transparency and publication of vote counts, while China and Russia have celebrated Mr Maduro’s supposed success.
In response to actions perceived as criminal, Venezuelan security is taking a hard stand through the arrest of more than 2,000 individuals. However, critics from advocacy groups argue that these are non-violent protestors who are being oppressed.
Previously, the foreign minister of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil jointly echoed calls for the Venezuelan electoral authority to make voting results public. This followed statements from Ms Machado, expressing her hopes for Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to convince Mr Maduro that negotiation with the opposition is his best course of action.