Maduro calls for Venezuelans to delete WhatsApp in growing crackdown

President Nicolás Maduro asked his supporters to remove WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging app, from their phones, as he said it’s being used by “fascists” to spread violence.

Speaking under the rain at a rally called by the ruling party’s youth branch, Maduro called for a “voluntary, progressive and radical withdraw” from WhatsApp. He said he was instead switching to Telegram and the Chinese messaging app WeChat.

“Through WhatsApp they are threatening the military family, the police, the street leaders, the community, everyone who doesn’t declare themselves in favour of fascism,” he said. On Aug 4, Maduro also said TikTok and Instagram were being used to promote “hate” and vowed to regulate their use.

Maduro’s attack on social media platforms comes on the heels of a wave of repression by his regime against any resistance to his self-declared win in the presidential election. He has repeatedly referred to opposition leader María Corina Machado and her stand-in candidate Edmundo González as “fascists”, and blamed them for the protests that ensued after they published documents showing his election win fraudulent.

Maduro had asked Venezuela’s high court to review the results and on Monday, the head of the electoral authority, Elvis Amoroso, handed over the electoral documentation, according to a transmission on state television. Neither Amoroso nor court judges said whether the documents contained table-by-table tabulations of the results – like the ones released by the opposition.

Earlier on Monday, Public Prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced he was opening an investigation against Machado and González, after they published a statement on Monday calling for the military and police officers to “side with the people”.

Maduro’s request for the removal of WhatsApp is a quick aboutface, after having relied on social media to help soften his image ahead of the July 28 election. The last message he shared through WhatsApp was on July 30, saying that “the people launched into the streets against violence and fascism… God is with us… Peace will win.”

At the youth rally, Maduro issued another warning to dissidents, reminding them of the government’s security operation “Tun-Tun” – named for the “knock-knock” sound on people’s doors.

“Knock, knock, who’s there?” he said, singing to the tune of a popular Christmas song. “People of peace. Don’t be a crying baby, you’ll go to Tocoron.”

Tocoron is one of the maximum-security prisons Maduro promised to send protesters to last week. He has said that security forces have arrested more than 2,000 people so far. – Bloomberg