Maduro, Musk and the digital self-coup in Venezuela

By: Carlos Cortés

This text originally appeared in the Network of Experts on Democracy and Technology in alliance with La Silla Vacía.

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"There's this thing they call social media, which creates a virtual reality. And who controls the virtual reality? Our new archenemy, the celebrated Elon Musk." Nicolás Maduro holds his cell phone in his right hand. A few minutes before, the National Electoral Council had proclaimed him re-elected President. "Do you want a fight? I am ready, I am Bolivar's and Chavez's son, let's fight wherever you want! The auditorium breaks into applause. Everyone is on their feet. The transmission focuses on the military leadership.

Twelve hours had not passed since the electoral body (CNE), headed by the family friend Elvis Amoroso, declared Maduro the winner in a single bulletin, with no minutes or scrutinies. From that moment on, the regime started the escape plan, perhaps the only one left: to double the bet, fabricate a conspiracy theory and accuse the counterpart of doing precisely what has always been its own practice.

Before the election, Elon Musk had tweeted only once about Venezuela. Since Sunday, he posted more than 50 messages: "Maduro the Donkey 😂"; "Massive electoral fraud by Maduro"; "Goodbye Dictator Maduro"; "Maduro is not a good person. Venezuela deserves much more". Incidentally, he withdrew the President's verification pimp for official organizations in X. Meta had already done the same with his Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Musk, the troll who bought Twitter (now known with the inane X), ally of Trump, Bolsonaro and Milei, was not going to miss the opportunity to move the turnstile of his platform and align himself with the Latin American right. He accepted the dueling challenge and laid out the conditions: "If I win, he resigns as dictator of Venezuela. If he wins, I give him a free trip to Mars". The episode adds to Musk's track record of making challenges to unlikely combatants-as he has done before with Mark Zuckerberg and Vladimir Putin.Air-filled headlines. Distraction for the meme factory.

Nicolás Maduro was not going to miss that bus either. Avid for smokescreens, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX served him to have a last-minute external enemy. He accused him of directing cyber attacks and brainwashing, in alliance with the Yankee empire and Colombian drug trafficking. "The first cybernetic coup in the history of mankind is in full swing in Venezuela", he said during the National Council of Productive Economy.

In the theory of the cyber attack against the CNE -whose page has been offline for almost a week- also participates Venezuela's Attorney General. Tarek William Saab, whom Hugo Chavez graduated as "poet of the revolution", announced on Monday an investigation against Maria Corina Machado and the exiled opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. According to Saab, an attack was organized from North Macedonia to alter the voting data in favor of the opposition: "They wanted to adulterate the voting records of the automated system".

The North Macedonian Department of Computer Crimes immediately disassociated itself. In a communiqué, it stated that it had not provided any information to the Venezuelan authorities about these facts and, on the contrary, asked for proof of these accusations: "We inform the public that even the appearance of Macedonian IP addresses in some alleged attack does not mean that they originally come from Macedonia". Any advanced Internet user knows that with a virtual private network (VPN) it is possible to surf online from almost any country.

The truth is that, so far, the only documented hacks have affected media and civil society organizations trying to make the electoral process transparent, ensure the flow of information and combat fake news. In the run-up to the election, VE Sin Filtro, dedicated to documenting the now traditional Internet censorship and restrictions in Venezuela, reported six cases of blockades -including their own-. And, since Monday, the number of web pages blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISP) has increased. Even Wikipedia has joined the list.

"They manipulate people's minds through their desires because there is a thing called 'big data' and they know what people like or don't like," said Nicolás Maduro about the coup theory in one of the many speeches this week, surrounded by amanuenses and cameras that follow him wherever he goes. The leader speaks with full knowledge of the facts. If there is something in which Venezuela stands out in the region, it is disinformation and inauthentic operations in social networks. Again, the origin is not in the opposition but in the regime.

Fact-checking organizations have been out in full force to verify the waves of disinformation -largely in favor of the government. Cazadores de Fake News' tally offers a full menu: false exit polls that gave victory to Maduro; fabricated statements by Edmundo González and Maria Corina Machado, according to which they would endorse massive dismissals; fabrications about a terminal illness of the opposition candidate; lies about Election Day that sought to discourage participation; and narratives that pointed to Machado as the instigator of violence in the streets.

The government's digital smoke not only serves as a cover; it is also the context and the alibi for the repression against the people. Both Maduro and his cliques have promised an iron fist to the four winds -they even announced an official app to denounce and profile those who protest-. On Saturday afternoon, Foro Penal denounced close to a thousand arbitrary detentions and a dozen murders still under verification. On Saturday afternoon there are also massive demonstrations in Caracas: "We are not afraid!" shouts the crowd. There is a thing called social networks. And they are not virtual.

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