Holding near complete control over most TV and radio stations is not enough for the Venezuelan government anymore. Now it wants to go after social networks.

Amidst the undergoing protests to oust socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro from power, the government has decided it's time to take the next step to increase their hold on what information can and cannot the Venezuelan people have access to. That is to say, now it wants to regulate social networks and who does what on those social media networks.

To give some context, in Venezuela, for the past ten years the government has been overtaking public and private media to silence critics. Be it TV stations, radio stations or newspapers, the regime has been after them, attacking them and acquiring them by either buying the owner out with threats and riches, or by expropriation. Being the latter their preferred method. This way, they have a hold on what is shown in the news and what is omitted. Obviously, this mean most government owned media is full of propaganda, critics of the government are a myth, and the country is displayed as an utopia where all is right, nothing to complain about except for that pesky opposition that is.

This is why now they are taking the next step in their plan for a complete blackout of information. Social media such as twitter, whatsapp, facebook and instagram are now the main way many Venezuelans stay on top of everything occurring in the country. To change that, the goverment plans to adopt new regulations which would allow them to investigate anonymous twitter, instagram, facebook accounts and such, as well as prosecute people for what they post on their social media accounts.

However, there is already a precedent for this, in 2015 people were already being sent to jail for tweets criticizing the government, or that Nicolás Maduro perceived as threats or as offensive. This is just another necessary step in the installment of a dictatorship of course. Nevertheless, they have stated even with the regulations, they don't really have the technology as of now to implement them.

Furthermore, they recently threatened Globovision, the biggest news channel in the country, bought years ago by pro-government businessmen, that if they showed more than one minute of the protests per day their signal would be cut, as they did with CNN and some other.

I personally doubt they would be able to do what they want, however we Venezuelans must keep our eyes peeled in case they want to follow in the footsteps of one of their closest allies, China, by installing a firewall that block everything they don't want seen out of the net.

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