Social network Twitter suspended more than 20 accounts connected to the Nicolas Maduro regime, including accounts for all four branches of the military, the military high command, Maduro’s press office, the Central Bank of Venezuela and the pro-Maduro mayor of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.
The suspensions began on January 7th when followers from the BCV account on Twitter noticed the account had been suspended.
Then, it was the turn of the National Guard, the branch of the military most connected to political repression and whose members tried to prevent entering from National Assembly President Juan Guaido to Sunday’s session.
Falcon state Governor, Victor Clark Boscan, and the Chief of Staff Army General, Jesus Suarez Chourio, both very close men to Maduro, have their accounts suspended.
Luis Carlos Diaz, a Venezuelan journalist, explained that suspensions could be associated “to the abusive use of bots to position trends and post automatic retweets. It was a corrupt and reiterated practice, for which even public money was used”.
Medias controlled by the Maduro regime, like the radio station Alba Ciudad and the Ciudad Caracas newspaper, Maduro’s press office, Presidency of Venezuela, and others were also suspended.
Twitter has said they can suspend accounts if it considers that faults as the posting of spam or abusive tweets have been incurred in. However, penalized accounts can be reactivated on request.
