That censorship bent of chavismo

A Twitter logo used by a few...

On occasion chavismo loves to remind us how it is dead set to someday turn off all the voices from people who disagree with them.  The latest attack is on Twitter where a group self called N33 has been hacking all sorts of twitter accounts from opposition figures.  This is not pretty game like we see on occasion in other countries where a political twitter account is as often hacked as the one from some celebrity.  In Venezuela, as far as I know, the only twitter accounts that have been hacked are those from opposition politicians and now well known OpEd columnists. the latest victim being one of my very favorites, Milagros Socorro.

Of course, nothing will be done against that situation, and those people who worked hard at building a large fellowship will lose it all , including possibly some of their best one liners.  Nothing will be done not because it is impossible (at the very least after a few days Twitter will suspend the hacked accounts though I do not know whehter the original owner can recover them).  It is impossible because the law in Venezuela will not do anything against it because chavismo takes pride in such attack on freedom of expression and any declaration from any prosecutor is only a pro-forma.  A convenient pro-forma is seen from outside people who think it is a child's game, without serious consequences. 

 The article I linked above is from FOX news becasue it is the lone one I found in English.  And yet it comes from AP and neither one gets it when they write:
Both Twitter and Google say the attacks most likely involved phishing
or when they allude easily to the "immaturity " of the hackers language forgetting to note that chavismo cultivates such "immature" language to reach better its base....

The truth here is that it is all part of the Cuban influenced attacks because in Venezuela after a few years of chavismo most people have learned to change passwords frequently, and to use separate accounts for their private lives and their political ones (as this blogger does). For so many accounts to be hacked in a few days you need an active participation of some governmental organization which has access to Internet, that is, a "secret laboratory" inside CANTV which is now well linked to Cuban intelligence through the fiber optical cable recently laid between the two countries, largely helped by the French who once again did not show any concern for dictators as long as they pay cash.

The hacking consequences are of course very simplistic but not because these people are immature: they are mature but they are ideologized idiots (redundancy intended).  The accounts of the victims quickly publish a stream of comments supporting Chavez and insulting other members of the opposition.  In a way it reminds me of the reasons why I had to start moderation in my comment section: the chavistas who used to visit were posting as many comments as possibel to drown in noise any other comment that might support my post, criticize chavismo and what not.  It was, and still is, the strategy of those who have no argument, or no defensible arguments, or cannot be bothered in their self righteousness to cobble together a pretense of coherence and debate.  When moderation came to the blog I was accused of censorship when that was exactly what they were doing with their noise, and that is exactly what N33 is doing to Twitter, silence as much of it as possible and blur it with red noise.

One has to wonder what is it with these people who after 13 years still think that if the hoi polloi is not totally behind Chavez at this point it is because they cannot access the regime information.  Amen of them absolutely unable to understand why someone woudl chose to pay for El Universal instead of reading the free red tabloids of Correo del Orinoco or Ciudad Caracas (free at least in hotels and many downtown offices).  And even more unable to understand why people will pay cable TV to watch Globovision when they can have VTV  and TelSur for free.

It is tragic for the regime to have to resort to such idiotic maneuvers to force its opinion on folks.  One would think that by now a substantial chunk of the 2 million followers of Chaevz is from the opposition who use to insult Chavez.  And thus they should know that hacking Milagros Socorro is not goign to gain a single new adept to chavismo.  But now, at Miraflores Palace they still keep such hopes even though almost everywhere else chavista commenters are on a steep decline.  Even here, where moderation has been suspended for a few months now, I have had not a single instance of a PSF visiting and forcing me to erase an inappropriate message.  The new feature of blogger that gives moderation on only posts older than 3 days has worked out quite well, helped along with Chavez discredit as he supported what PSF cannot support; Assad, Qaddafi and the like....

If it were not so sad and ominous one would laugh at the inability of chavismo to force its message, of it feeling like hacking Twitter is dividend to enjoy.  Make no mistake, that twitter hacking episode is yet another sign that the beast is lurking and that when pressed enough it will close Globovision or a major paper, or both....