Caracas, January 9 (RHC)-- Twitter accounts linked to Venezuela's Central Bank, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), public media, political leaders, and journalists were suspended without explanation earlier this week.
Accounts belonging to the FANB Strategic Operating Command and Press Department were suspended. So were the accounts of the Army, the Navy, Aviation, the National Guard, and the Militia.
Similarly, five media accounts were suspended, among which are the Presidential Press and the Press of the Mayor's Office of Caracas. Twitter also suspended the accounts of personalities such as Victor Clark, who is the Falcon State Governor; Freddy Bernal, an outstanding historical figure within the Bolivarian revolution; and Jesus Suarez, who served as FANB General Commander.
In this wave of unjustified censorship, the accounts of the Finance Ministry, the Oil Ministry, the National Center for Information Technology (CNTI), and the National Commission for Information Technology were also suspended.
These events occurred on the same day on which Twitter suspended for a few hours the account of the Iranian television channel, HispanTV. According to Twitter rules, an account can be closed if it is used for spam, if it has been hacked, if it exhibits abusive behavior, if it sends threats or if it impersonates the identity of other accounts.
The Venezuelan government issued an official statement saying that the closed accounts of Venezuelan users do not have any of those characteristics.
