Latest posts by Marianne Diaz

Will the Revolution Still be Tweeted? Venezuela's Netizens Face Uncertain Future

Since the death of Hugo Chavez and narrow victory of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, two social media users have been arrested for posting information deemed “destabilizing” to the country. On election day, the Internet was briefly shut down throughout most of the country. And today, social network users are facing threats to their employment status, as authorities search profiles for signs of political affiliation that have, in several cases, resulted in users losing their jobs.

25 April 2013

Venezuela: Facebook User Detained for “Destabilizing” Photograph

Two days after presidential elections in Venezuela, authorities detained Andrés Rondón Sayago, a citizen who allegedly spread photographs of burning ballots. Officials say that the photographs were taken during 2007 elections, not in the present day. Rondón Sayago has been accused of sharing the photographs with “destabilizing intentions.”

18 April 2013

Colombia: Copyright Law Rejected by Constitutional Court

On Wednesday night, October 23, 2012, the Colombian Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional Articles 13 and 14 of the Law 1520, better known as Lleras Law 2.0. The proposed law provides for sanctions of online copyright infringement, in accordance with the Free Trade Agreement signed between Columbia and the United States.

25 January 2013

Venezuela: The bill to regulate internet has been approved

On Monday, December 20th, the Venezuelan Parliament passed the bill that gives the Executive the power to regulate all content accessible in Internet within Venezuela. Through an administrative organ, CONATEL, all venezuelan-based ISPs will have the responsibility to block all content that collides with article 28 and 29.

22 December 2010

Venezuela: Internet law moves forward, albeit with changes

In a first round of discussion, on December 14th, the Venezuelan National Assembly approved the reform to the Law on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Electronic Media and differed for today the Law for Telecommunications. However, the texts that were discussed yesterday were different to the ones that were published on the Assembly website, and several points were eliminated

16 December 2010

Venezuela: WordPress reported inaccessible for three days

Since Sunday afternoon, September 26th, 2010, while Venezuelan elections for the National Assembly were still being held, several users started reporting that they were unable to access any blog hosted on the free blogging platform Wordpress.com from their internet connections within the country.

1 October 2010

Venezuela: Government vs. Social Networks, the battle continues.

Last week, the President of the Media Commission of the National Assembly, Manuel Villalba, declared that tomorrow, September 21, he’ll file a petition before the National Prosecutor against several websites (link: ES). The cause: during a spate of deceases of people belonging to the high spheres of the government, several people expressed their enjoyment for the deaths, in diverse social networks and forums. Regarding this matter, legislator Gustavo Capella declared that this investigation should also encompass twitter and facebook.

20 September 2010

Venezuela: Twitterers, bloggers and forum members, in the eye of the justice.

A week ago, venezuelan President ordered to initiate a thorough and systematic investigation in order to identify the sources of the rumors about the instability of private banking. Authorities stated that generation of rumors is a crime, and that users of digital forums, online social networks, twitter or even text messages might be held responsible for manipulation and 'terrorism'.

28 June 2010

President Chávez and his “Communicational Guerrilla”

On last sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez launched the program named “Communicational Thunder”, and seventy-five young students between ages 13 and 17, were sworn in his "Communicational Guerrilla", wearing khaki jackets and red bandanas tied around their necks. They had been trained to "fight against imperialist messages", either on social networks online, on walls and pamphlets or "through direct intervention".

16 April 2010