- In recent weeks, several news portals, social networks and websites have been blocked on the country’s main Internet servers.
Following the presidential elections held in Venezuela on July 28 and the announcement by the National Electoral Council (CNE) that Nicolás Maduro was the winner, the non-governmental organization (NGO) Ve Sin Filtro has reported the blocking of various news pages, websites and applications.
One of the affected pages was the one created by the Comando Con Venezuela for the review of electoral records (resultadosconvzla.com). On July 30, the NGO reported that the website was blocked on several Internet servers in the country.
The campaign command of opposition leader María Corina Machado and candidate Edmundo González detailed on August 1 that in 24 hours they had more than 32 million queries and mitigated more than 44 million attacks.
Application lock
Nicolas Maduro On Thursday, August 8, he ordered the social network X to be taken out of circulationformerly known as Twitter, for a period of 10 days, so that the company can present “documents” to the country’s authorities.
At a political event, the president explained that he signed the proposal to suspend X, drawn up by the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), with the aim of “enforcing the laws.”
“X should get out of Venezuela for 10 days, so that they can present their documents and establish the definitive administrative measure, but enough is enough, enough of trying to sow violence, hatred, of trying to attack Venezuela from abroad,” said Maduro, who has accused Musk of being part of a “cyber coup” against him.
Minutes after the announcement by the official leader, Ve Sin Filtro reported that the web version and the application of the social network were blocked on CANTV, Movistar, Digitel, NetUno, Inter and SuperCable.
The instant messaging application Signal also presented blocks since August 8. “The blocking of Signal is an attack on the right to freedom of expression, opinion and association. It is an app that is especially useful for journalists and activists who understand the risks of digital surveillance,” the NGO said.
Information pages and websites blocked
VE without Filter denounced on August 2 that the website of the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal was blocked in Venezuela after making public a letter from opposition leader María Corina Machado in which she expressed fear for her physical integrity.
The NGO explained that the US platform is blocked by the operators CANTV, Movistar, Digitel, Inter and NetUno.
On August 1, Ve Sin Filtro reported that restrictions on access to the CNE website, which contains official data on the presidential election, are not open inside or outside Venezuela. “The restrictions have been imposed by the CNE itself and not by Internet providers, failing to fulfill their responsibility to make election results and other information of public interest available,” it noted.
Other websites that were blocked were the newspaper Final Versionwhose domain was taken away, as well as The Lara PressReddit, Statista and MercadoLibre.
In the days leading up to the end of the electoral campaign in Venezuela, the spokesperson for the NGO Laboratorio de Paz, Lexys Rondón, told CNN that access within the country to 12 digital media outlets had been blocked since the campaign began on July 4.
At the time, the NGO reported that it had recorded 60 blocked pages during its decade of operation, mostly critical and independent media outlets and non-profit organizations. These include: As is, El Estímulo, Runrunes and Venezuela without filter.
Tik Tok suspends the possibility of recording Nicolás Maduro live
In a national broadcast on August 12, Nicolás Maduro said that the social network Tik Tok had suspended his ability to broadcast live videos until August 19, for which he accused the company’s executives of “wanting a civil war in Venezuela.”
Other restrictions
On August 10, the Binance cryptocurrency platform through emails sent to its users and in its X account, reported that rThey registered a blockage of access to their website from Venezuela.
“Like several websites of companies from different segments in Venezuela, including social networks, Binance pages have been facing access restrictions only in Venezuela,” reads the text from the global cryptocurrency exchange company.
According to a message on X’s Ve Sin Filtro account, the blockage was detected in the evening hours of August 9 through the Internet provider of the state telecommunications company CANTV.
The NGO also denounced on August 9 that CANTV blocked access to essential Microsoft servicessuch as Teams and Outlook.
Today we detected an HTTPS block on CANTV, a state-owned company and largest ISP in Venezuela, against Microsoft·com that impacts various services,” warned the NGO, which explained that the block prevents users from establishing connections with Microsoft servers.
On August 11, the NGO reported that the streaming platforms Max and Disney+ had been blocked through the Internet provider CANTV for several days. So far, the reason for the blocking of these entertainment services is unknown.
VPN to bypass blocks
Various social media users have begun using virtual private networks (VPNs) to view restricted pages in Venezuela.
Here are some of the VPNs recommended by experts:
Free VPNs: Hotspot Shield Free VPN, Windscribe, ProtonVPN Free, PrivadoVPN, Speedify, Hide.me y TunnelBear.
VPN Payments: NordVPN, Surfshark, Atlas VPN, BitDefender VPN, CyberGhost VPN, ExpressVPN y IPVanish.
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#Applications #websites #blocked #elections #Venezuela
2024-08-13 09:05:10
