Venezuela

The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch
Francisco Toro
Feb 20, 2014

Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting. What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.

After the major crackdown on the streets of major (and minor) Venezuelan cities last night, I expected some kind of response in the major international news outlets this morning.

Nothing.

The level of disengagement on display is deeply shocking.

Venezuela’s domestic media blackout is joined by a parallel international blackout, one born not of censorship but of disinterest and inertia. It’s hard to express the sense of helplessness you get looking through these pages and finding nothing. Venezuela burns; nobody cares.

A friend of mine had shared it on FB and I found it incredibly sad that the media is failing their jobs so miserably covering this.

I know we get contentious with each other here on the forums, but it was someone, I think the Reverend, pointing out that there were big things happening internationally that weren't being discussed that first made me aware of the situation, and I am, yet again, deeply appreciative of the fact that we are not all one party here and that we have this place to share news and our perspectives with each other. Between us all with our biased sources and our differing beliefs we find a balance if we can stop and look at the big picture.

In Venezuela, the Only Free Media Is Twitter
By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
February 28, 2014

Venezuelan retired army general Angel Vivas had heard the authorities were coming for him on Sunday. He had no intention of surrendering, so he put on a flak jacket, took out his assault rifle—and started tweeting.

What followed was an armed standoff, in which Vivas resisted the arrest with the help of his neighbors who blocked the security forces and live tweeted the event. All this reportedly began because he had posted a controversial tweet suggesting to protesters a way to knock down policemen riding bikes.

This standoff incident is representative of how much Venezuelans have been relying on social media, particularly Twitter during the protests that started over two weeks ago.

Twitter has been used by the protesters to both get their voices out into the world and to document the protests. But contrary to other popular uprisings, where social media was the domain of just one side of the story, no one side controls the narrative on Twitter in Venezuela.

#SOSVenezuela , the main hashtag used around the last month's protests, was tweeted 4.1 million times. #Venezuela has been tweeted 5.3 million times. And #ResistenciaVzla a total of 1.7 million times. We don't know how many of these mentions are coming from within Venezuela's borders, but it does tell us one thing.

Venezuelans, using Twitter, are being heard.