Title page
Contents
Executive Summary 4
Introduction 7
Venezuela, after twenty-five years of Chavismo 10
Media environment overview 15
Targeting of independent voices in online spaces 31
State-sponsored information operations 37
State surveillance 45
Access to internet in Venezuela 51
Conclusion 58
Appendix 1: Table of blocked news websites 59
Appendix 2: Table of blocked political websites 61
Appendix 3: Table of blocked civil society organization websites 62
Appendix 4: Table of blocked anonymization and circumvention tool websites 62
Acknowledgments 63
Table 1. Violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela by year, as documented by Espacio Público and IPYS Venezuela. The 2024 data correspond to... 26
Tables 2-3. Tables showing categories for violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela, as delineated by IPYS Venezuela and Espacio Público 27
Tables 4-5. Tables showing the perpetrators of violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela by volume 28
Table 6. Table showing violations of freedom of expression against journalists in Venezuela by gender, as surveyed by IPYS Venezuela 29
Table 7. Table showing the number of recorded incidents, by type, during calendar years 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 of hate, discrimination, and other forms... 30
Table 8. Table showing the number of blocked websites by category (e-commerce, economics, hate speech, human rights, media sharing, news media,... 53
Figure 1. Map of media outlets active in Venezuela by region until November 2023 16
Figure 2. Total minutes of on-air television news coverage by political bloc in November 2021, when local elections were held 18
Figure 3. English translation of operational orders received by state-media journalists with guidelines from Venezuela's Information and Communication... 44
Figure 4. Connectivity Events 56
Figure 5. Line graph shared on social media depicting the drop in connectivity of most states in Venezuela on February 14, 2022 57