President Maduro blocks access to X in Venezuela for 10 days
Al Jazeera
Row with social media platform owner Elon Musk escalates after Maduro was declared the winner of last month’s election.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has ordered a 10-day ban on social media platform X amid an uproar in the country over a disputed election.
Accusing X owner Elon Musk of “inciting hate and fasicism”, Maduro on Thursday said he signed a resolution presented by telecommunications regulator Conatel which “has decided to take social network X, formerly known as Twitter, out of circulation for 10 days”.
“Elon Musk is the owner of X and has violated all the rules of the social network itself,” Maduro said following a march by pro-government groups.
“X get out of Venezuela for 10 days!” he said in a speech that was broadcast on state television.
Election authorities declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election with 51.2 percent of votes, but have yet to release detailed results. It said opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who had been leading in opinion polls, got 44.2 percent.
