Yesterday, after two days of intense protests throughout the country, Venezuelan netizens reported a number of problems accessing certain websites. Several websites were reported as blocked, and Twitter users were unable to access images and video on the social networking site, which has been vital for communication among protesters. Gabriel Bastidas, a Venezuelan journalist, said on Twitter:

10:08 pm, Habrían bloqueado en Venezuela los protocolos de media de Twitter. Usuarios reportan que no pueden ver fotos.

— Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) febrero 14, 2014

10:08 pm, [apparently] they would have blocked Twitter multimedia protocols in Venezuela. Users report that they cannot see photos.

Journalist Jesús Torrivilla said:

Yo tengo bloqueado el cliente web de twitter. Uso ABA. Pero logré que acceder desde TOR https://t.co/CYo6ZBKCOG

— Jesus Torrivilla (@jtvilla) febrero 14, 2014

I have the webclient for Twitter blocked. I use ABA. But I could access using Tor.

Journalist Laura Solórzano reported:

El problema con las fotos en Twitter se debe a un bloqueo de los protocolos de #media de Twitter. Lo hace el gobierno.

— Laura Solórzano (@LauSolorzano) febrero 14, 2014

The problem with the pictures on Twitter is due to a blockage of Twitter protocols. It's done by the government.

El problema con las imágenes de Twitter las presentan solo personas con conexión CANTV. Inter y satelital, están normal.

— Laura Solórzano (@LauSolorzano) febrero 14, 2014

The problem with the pictures in Twitter is suffered only by people with CANTV connections. Inter and satelital are normal.

Other users did traceroutes to the Twitter image server and reported that the connection was being interrupted by CANTV, the government-owned ISP that has a near-monopoly over other telecommunications providers in the country. Loris Santamaría, a consultant in network infrastructure services, tweeted:

Pues tengo la traza, quien nos está bloqueando es Cantv @fmonroy @rufian

— Loris Santamaria (@lorissantamaria) febrero 14, 2014

Well, I have the traceroute, it's Cantv who's blocking us

Other users were having issues accessing different websites throughout the day. Naky Soto, a venezuelan blogger and activist, reported problems accessing the website of the national newspaper El Nacional and linked a screencapture:

@Felixxi @fanzinero A mucha gente los enlaces de El Nacional le presentan este error: pic.twitter.com/WMSgtshpal

— Naky Soto (@Naky) febrero 12, 2014

For many people, links from El Nacional are giving this error

On Thursday, William Castillo, President of the Venezuelan Telecommunications Commission, CONATEL, declared that media coverage of the protests could result in a violation of the Law of Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic Media. The Venezuelan government has been blocking websites for different reasons for several years, and a wave of blockages flared last November, when President Maduro announced measures against websites reporting on the unofficial price of foreign currency. On past Saturday, Castillo had announced that the government had blocked up to 384 websites for this reason:

CONATEL ha logrado de las operadoras de Internet en Venezuela el bloqueo de 384 direcciones de páginas web que desinforman con dólar ilegal.

— William Castillo B (@planwac) febrero 8, 2014

CONATEL has gotten Venezuelan ISPs to block 384 website urls that are distributing misinformation about the illegal dollar.

On Friday, scattered reports of problems accessing other websites, such as Pastebin.com, Facebook and Twitter itself, have continued. Friday afternoon, CANTV issued a statement categorically denying its connection with blocking images on Twitter.