Censorship in Venezuela: Maduro regime's blockages to social networks are becoming more sophisticated

Appeals by opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Venezuelans for rejecting President Nicolás Maduro's regime are being heard around the world, but the acting acting president is using more to get his message in the country, given the strong censorship that he has applied. chavismo

Surveillance groups in Venezuela and abroad claim that Guaidó's efforts to communicate with citizens via the Internet have been prevented by the main supplier (the state company CANTV) in a country where critical newspapers and television have already been muted.

Since January 23, when Guaidó was proclaimed president and protests against the Maduro government broke out, CANTV has blocked access to social networks at least four times, the monitoring groups said.

These interruptions coincided with important political eventsincluding a demonstration last week involving thousands of people and a speech on 27 January by Guaidó, broadcast live via Periscope, calling for more demonstrations and calling on the military to withdraw support for Maduro.

CANTV represents 70% of fixed Internet connections in Venezuela and 50% of mobile connections. Netblocks, a European non-governmental group monitoring censorship online, concluded that the chavista regime blocked access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube during 12 of the 13 minutes of Guaidó's speechtherefore, streaming has been viewed continuously only by private Internet users.

The group is testing from its offices with software that captures evidence of failed connections. He also designed a scanning application that volunteers in affected countries can use to test from their mobile phone and computer.

"We are building tools to diagnose problems and to differentiate between overload problems and blockages," said the director. netblocks, Alp Toker.

VESinFiltro, a Venezuelan surveillance group using technology developed by the Open Observatory for Network Interference group, published similar conclusions on Guaidó's speech.

Human rights groups denounce the Intentional blockades show that methods to silence critics are becoming increasingly sophisticated in Venezuela, where it blocks access to information portals and illegal currency markets since 2014.

VESinFiltro's director, Andrés Azpurúa, said that although ISPs have previously restricted access to portals using a technique called DNS blocking, they have evolved. methods that allow interruptions just in time during the different phases of connecting a computer to portals, which complicates the task of site administrators to avoid them.