Venezuelan Government Shuts Down Internet In Wake Of Protests

Don't expect one whole heck of a lot of tweets coming out of Venezuela in the immediate future as President Nicolas Maduro's government has shut down the internet and select TV channels. Having shut down Twitter access for the area this past week, Venezuela's state-run ISP CANTV has been cut in areas such as San Cristobal. This area is a regional capital in the west of the country and CANTV controls the vast majority of internet connectivity in the area.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation made note that Venezuelans working with several different ISPs lost all connectivity on Thursday of this past week. Users lost connectivity to the major content delivery network Edgecast and the IP address which provides access to Twitter's image hosting service while another block stopped Venezuelan access to the text-based site Pastebin.

CONATEL director William Castillo suggests that the internet cuts were not due to the protests directly. CONATEL is the country's media regulation network, and Castillo suggested via Noticias24 that online attacks were being waged. CONATEL, he suggests, blocked linkes "where public sites were being attacked."

Meanwhile the New York Times reports that the news network NTN24 has been shut down as well. The alternative news channel Telesur, run by the Venezuelan government, is still up and running. NTN24 has been shut down, according to the president of Venezuela, due to their attempt to "torment anxiety about a coup d'etat."

The President Maduro went on to suggest that "no one is going to come from abroad and try to perturb the psychological climate of Venezuela." NTN24 was removed on Wednesday of this past week. Venezuelan government shuts down internet in wake of protests

Don't expect one whole heck of a lot of tweets coming out of Venezuela in the immediate future as President Nicolas Maduro's government has shut down the internet and select TV channels. Having shut down Twitter access for the area this past week, Venezuela's state-run ISP CANTV has been cut in areas such as San Cristobal. This area is a regional capital in the west of the country and CANTV controls the vast majority of internet connectivity in the area.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation made note that Venezuelans working with several different ISPs lost all connectivity on Thursday of this past week. Users lost connectivity to the major content delivery network Edgecast and the IP address which provides access to Twitter's image hosting service while another block stopped Venezuelan access to the text-based site Pastebin.

CONATEL director William Castillo suggests that the internet cuts were not due to the protests directly. CONATEL is the country's media regulation network, and Castillo suggested via Noticias24 that online attacks were being waged. CONATEL, he suggests, blocked linkes "where public sites were being attacked."

Users can witness the internet down time via Herdict where Instagram and Facebook also appear slow or blocked entirely.

Meanwhile the New York Times reports that the news network NTN24 has been shut down as well. The alternative news channel Telesur, run by the Venezuelan government, is still up and running. NTN24 has been shut down, according to the president of Venezuela, due to their attempt to "torment anxiety about a coup d'etat."

The President Maduro went on to suggest that "no one is going to come from abroad and try to perturb the psychological climate of Venezuela." NTN24 was removed on Wednesday of this past week.