Manufacturing Contempt for Venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

Manufacturing Contempt for Venezuela
Written by Cyril Mychalejko
Tuesday, 04 March 2014 22:55



Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan blogger and founder of Caracas Chronicles.


A profile of the Venezuelan opposition’s systematic misinformation campaign and social media’s contribution to it.

The Venezuelan opposition has been skillfully using Twitter and Facebook to disseminate horrifying photos and testimonies of alleged government violence and abuse against protesters over the last few weeks. The problem with these allegations and images which have gone viral globally, and even used by media outlets, is that they are fabrications; many of the most viral photos allegedly from Venezuela have actually depicted images from places such as Syria, Chile, Brazil - and even a US-based porn site.

“Initial, inaccurate information will be retweeted more than any subsequent correction,” wrote Craig Silverman, journalist and founder of the blog Regret the Error, for the Poynter Institute in a post in 2010. Silverman’s insight reveals the dangers, often ignored, about the use of Twitter and social media as a news source, as well as a tool for liberation and uprisings. However, the way social media is being used, or some might say abused, in Venezuela is not the result of a few “bad apples” or some mischievous students taking part in opposition protests. In fact, this propaganda technique is being used by high profile opposition figures, while training anti-chavista Venezuelans to use social media has been a project of Washington for some time now.

~snip~
Then there is Francisco Toro, a Venezuelan blogger whose "musings" at Caracas Chronicles (a website he founded) are “a must-read for foreign journalists,” according to the Associated Press. In an article that went viral on both Twitter and Facebook entitled “The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night - and the International Media are Asleep at the Switch”, Toro wrote about a “tropical pogrom” that allegedly took place one night in Venezuela - except it didn’t. There was no massacre by “paramilitaries.” One person did die from injuries sustained that night, however that was four days later. This death is a tragedy, but it is a far cry from a “pogrom” or massacre. After this misinformation and gross exaggeration was exposed and criticized Toro took to Twitter and admitted to “overstatement in the heat of the moment.” He also addressed it in a blog post which garnered a whopping 14 likes on Facebook and 12 Tweets - in contrast with the hundreds of thousands of Facebook likes and over 10,000 Tweets his original, factually challenged blog post amassed. This supports Silverman’s aforementioned thesis about how error corrections are not retweeted and viewed as much as the initial errors.

Furthermore, Toro took to Twitter again to defend himself, this time by suggesting that Caracas Chronicles shouldn’t be considered journalism - something I wholeheartedly agree with - though their should be a disclaimer at the top of each page so as not to confuse international journalists like the one at the Associated Press, who considers Toro a “must-read.” Toro is also an oped contributor for The New York Times.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/4728-manufacturing-contempt-for-venezuela

[Doctor_J]

1. Any perceived threat from, or even tiny germ of, a leftist movement is overrun by

every available dollar and resource of the 1%. Many who should know better swallow the whole load too.

[djean111]

2. Hey, it is almost a drinking game for me - reading about every little "bad" thing that

happens in Venezuela. The constant drone anti-Venezuela stuff does not have the effect on me that is desired, I am pretty sure. I take all that stuff with a pound of salt.