Venezuelans hungry for information. ‘The Battle Getting news in a country in chaos

the world’s media has rarely paid so much attention to Venezuela, as in 2019, if you are reading this and want to know about the country’s crisis is a wealth of information most likely at hand. Each new low in the economic collapse of Venezuela that left nine out of 10 people afford food, and each new turn of his political drama – two men continue to claim to be president – it has been documented in detail about meticulous journals and analyzed newspapers and screen dish. But for Venezuelans in the country, find out what is going on around them has become a struggle. Nicolás Maduro authoritarian government oversaw the collapse in 2014 of Venezuela in economic and humanitarian crisis without precedent, tried to limit citizens’ access to information. Most TVs are state-owned and government agencies prohibit the few TV stations and independent radios to cover Venezuelan crisis as it unfolds: in widespread failure of a power outage, food and medicine, and that led the protests of ‘ opposition. Not being able to afford the paper to print on, newspapers and magazines have all but disappeared. As a result, the Internet is the last place in Venezuela is for non-government sanctioned information contact the can. It ‘also the only way to organize the opposition – and that means it is a key battleground in the struggle for control of Venezuela was. The authorities regularly block news outlets and social media or critical stop talking online, while connection speed web underfunded infrastructure have slowed to levels almost unusable. But a network of activists and former journalists fight. Teach Creating metro news services on WhatsApp, and less technically savvy to navigate restrictions, maintaining the flow of information throughout the country. “Most Venezuelans are in the dark, hungry for information,” says Andrés Azpúrua, director of Internet freedom watchdog Since filter VE (Venezuela without filter). “People work really hard to get [it] for them.” Internet Freedom Venezuela has been weakening for several years, with the country last fall to “partly free” to “not free” in the annual reports of global democracy monitor Freedom House in 2017 – the year of widespread protests broke out between the deterioration of living conditions caused by a drop in the world price of oil and mismanagement. But Azpúrua says censorship since January this year “rapidly accelerated” has as Juan Guaidó, opposition leader Venezuelan, Parliament pointed a claim to the presidency. Guaidó Maduro claimed that second term, won in rigged elections in 2018 was invalid and that the constitution has temporarily commissioned get carried away. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans gathered to show support, while the United States and other 50 countries, mostly Western Guaidó recognized as president in the streets for his statement. Maduro retains the support of key allies Russia, China and Turkey, criticism of the military of Venezuela. Venezuela is now the subject of frequent blackouts information – periods of prolonged and widespread censorship that only usually occur in the eyes of the world media have moved to Venezuela. On the weekend of February 22, for example, as a trailer Guaidó with the military in an attempt to bring aid to Venezuela from Colombia, the dominant state-owned Internet Service Provider blocked YouTube and other streaming sites, along with a number of national agencies addressed and foreign news, according VE Since filter. Several online news channel, which has been a viable alternative to the heavily censored news during the 2017 protests were blocked during the Bully border and are not available from most Internet service providers. Almost every time Guaidó stream a speech on Instagram, Youtube or the periscope, the site will go exactly when it begins, says Azpúrua. The authorities used to block sites with simple block DNS (Domain Name System); government order, sites of users required Internet service providers stopped connecting. As more and more people began to scramble VPN (Virtual Private Networks) web traffic, be tapped for use and stop it, the government has more sophisticated, Azpúrua says, and VPN services blocked to start. “You have not won the war. But they are definitely winning the ground.” The most visible face of the movement to fight against censorship based on Caracas Luis Carlos Díaz. A technology journalist, radio host and himself as a “child of the Internet,” became Díaz for counseling her large following online known how to use alternative services or a proxy server, and what to do while blackout of information. In March, state television said one of his videos of news blackout – a couple of weeks published several days before an actual average power blackout in Venezuela – proved that he was involved in the US supported a cyber attack to bring the electricity network. (Maduro No evidence of US involvement and experts at the Central University of Venezuela electrical equipment wildfire offered blamed for triggering the collapse of the chronically underfunded grid.) On March 11, four days after the black- out, the intelligence Díaz stopped as he put home on his bicycle and a cap on the head before you pack into a car. It ‘was taken to a south-central building Caracas to helicoids, space age, that in the last five years a maintenance center known for political prisoners was. Intelligence held him for 30 hours, while refusing his wife and colleague Naky Soto said that suffer from cancer if they had in custody. Media and organizations for human rights around the world, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, has demanded answers. Thirty hours later, the agents provide free Díaz free with orders to report every eight days and not to discuss his case. Venezuelan authorities imprison journalists regularly claim that they entered the country illegally or violated “security zones”, or rely on a “law against hate” vague approved in 2017. But journalists are not the only target. Last April, intelligence agents arrested three teenagers, invite Facebook friends used to a protest, according to Human Rights Watch. In May Pedro Jaimes Criollo, who runs a time and aeronautical data account monitoring Twitter, disappeared for 33 days after he shared the path that the presidential plane was in a post, how to fly some planes. (The route of the President was already publicly accessible charge on air travel.) Local media said in February that Jaimes Criollo waiting in helicoids their trial was on charges related to national security. With detention of social media users, even those with no apparent political reasons, says Díaz officials try to ones to prove their chain of command greater loyalty. “Everyone has to stop her kind of people rate and then point to the regime, as a trophy”, she says talking TIME by phone from Caracas. “You can say, I have these conspirators have taken those terrorists. ‘It does not matter to her if it’s true.” Journalists are these types of risks for the paltry salaries as well. As a foreign correspondent working for US media in Caracas each month can be hundreds or thousands of dollars to do, Díaz says the average Venezuelan journalist has earned for an independent production only $5 or $10. Work “It may not seem important, it makes it really hard to do your homework when you feel hungry all the time, or you can not afford to buy medicine for your family, “says Díaz. However, the information to get a lot out there determined. “People think outside the box to deliver messages to the various communities,” says Azpúrua. One of the most obvious methods has been Bus TV, where journalists are public buses, read from rumors to keep a TV-like frame around their faces. The idea is to let members of the public, and partly to protest censorship. produce short audio news as voice notes or WhatsApp Soundcloud distribute more practical, activists and journalists, some work in exile, established services like Información Pública. Other intelligence services as upstart ¿Qué está Pasando? (What’s going on?), To share images of text, people can for when the Internet interface to store their cell phones. These underground news programs are divided into “large distribution lists,” says Azpúrua. “People who have signed up to receive [bulletins] and share it with their friends, and so on, making it go viral.” But, as in other countries where social media is a source of news it has been is difficult to avoid the spread of misinformation. Under Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, false stories have gone on-line viral arrived on military conscription of children and young people and the Russian troops in Venezuela, on people’s fears to pray about where the political crisis goes on. The widespread use of WhatsApp large groups to share news has encouraged this trend, analysts say, because the application is encrypted and shared private messages do not allow journalists or fact-checkers to see them and demand inaccuracies. ‘Also more likely to read on their cell phone, where it is more difficult to news people to recognize the signs of an illegitimate source. A similar phenomenon is in India and Brazil, where WhatsApp also shares news is often used. It is not clear who was behind the false stories. Some of them can be created by opposition groups, while others, says Diaz, from the regime. “The government has its own team created a parallel [offline pro-government gangs] colectivos per share, false stories,” he says. The goal is to manipulate not only people with pro-government stories, but also more generally, to discredit the few remaining news points that claim to be credible. “It ‘clouds the water.. It is a very sophisticated strategy” The cumulative effect, says Díaz, a population in the dark – a boon to the regime. “If people can not access the information, it makes them feel isolated, as all their problems are just individual. This makes them less likely to protest,” TIME says, adding that the smaller and more localized, restlessness, more easier it is to contain the regime there, and resist demands for change. “It ‘a terrible blow to our democracy”.
Picture copyright by Luis Robayo – AFP / Getty Images