Venezuela blocks X for 10 days amid escalating online tensions between Nicolás Maduro and Elon Musk over the country’s elections
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has ordered access to X blocked for 10 days amid an online spat with owner Elon Musk and a crackdown on dissent over his controversial re-election.
Maduro, a self-described revolutionary socialist, has accused Musk of fueling the protests sparked by the election, casting the billionaire and the unrest as part of a US-backed “fascist, imperialist” coup plot in Venezuela.
“He violated the rules by inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, conflict of the Venezuelan people and violated all the laws of Venezuela,” Maduro said in a speech on Thursday evening.
Maduro said the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission will “remove social network X, formerly known as Twitter, from operating in Venezuela within 10 days.”
By Friday morning, posts on X had stopped loading for users inside Venezuela. Only those with VPN access could access the site.
