By William Castillo on August 13, 2024
Elon Musk
The World is on the edge, The telecommunications emporiums and the companies that manage social networks have become economic and politic mega-constructs. They now function as true states.
Elon Musk has been “banned” in Venezuela. President Nicolás Maduro, in a decision that goes beyond the David vs. Goliath metaphor he likes to allude to in order to describe his confrontation with the fashionable techno-oligarch, ordered the social network X – owned by the megamillionaire Musk – to go off the air for 10 days in Venezuela.
Since before July 28, Musk has not stopped threatening the Venezuelan government with using his economic and technological power to “restore freedom”. In one of his frequent verbal excesses, the Starlink and Tesla owner bragged that he himself will come to put Maduro behind bars.
In response, Nicolás Maduro challenged him to a direct clash and offered the Poliedro de Caracas as the stage for what – if it happens – would be the real fight of the century.
The truth is that what the Venezuelan government is asking for is the same as what other countries have asked of technology corporations. That the social network X takes charge of the perverse phenomena that derive from it and affect the Venezuelan population.
Of hate crimes, of ideological bullying, of the constant, massive and anonymous aggression managed from bot farms. Of the virtual persecution of ideas. The logical thing would be for the network, which Richard Seymour described as “the chirping machine” to open a headquarters in the country, with its own legal personality and able to receive complaints from users, society and the State. Something like: “show your face X, assume your responsibility”.
It could be said that the X network – which every day, without further explanation, blocks and bans people around the world – has been given a dose of its own medicine.
And beyond the fact that the measure has not fully worked because the major operators have complied with the order of the National Telecommunications Commission, while other Internet operators have not, the decision is an important milestone in this field of dispute between political and technological power. Between States and corporations.
The New Cyberstates
The world is on the brink. The telecommunications emporiums and the companies that manage social networks have become economic and political mega-constructs.
They now function as true states: with inherent laws and rules, without regard for external regulations; with punitive systems, police and prisons of their own; relaxed morals and unbridled ambition. Without limits or scruples.
Virtual states whose economic power (GDP) exceeds that of many nations. Recently, we were surprised that Scandinavian countries are already appointing their own “ambassador for social networks”, as if they were states.
The new cyber-states are on the warpath. They have launched a global crusade for domination of the planet. The power of their missiles and their army is based on the enormous capacity of penetration and influence of the platforms.
They support revolts to overthrow governments as well as “democratically” bring neo-fascist leaders to power through their powerful seduction structures.
The same they make invisible the genocide in Gaza and persecute as “anti-Semitic” anyone who dares to criticize the most horrible crime against humanity since World War II, as they criminalize Venezuela, positioning our country in the global imaginary as a “hell”. They promote the proxy war of the US and NATO against Russia through Ukraine, and support Taiwan’s provocations against China.
As we saw in the hours after July 28, social networks equally drive campaigns of hate, revanchism and intolerance, glorifying violence and crime when virtual aggression turns to blood and mayhem. Or they disqualify states when they try to recover public peace.
It is the same behavior everywhere. As they do today, promoting violence against migrants in the United Kingdom.
We must confront the gigantic corporate structures that act without any law, violating international law. And we have no other refuge than the public, the collective, the State. The ability to act together against what is harmful to the common good. In this context, Venezuela’s gesture is a transcendent sign, beyond the fact that, after 10 days, Musk will most likely issue a meme making fun of it. Of course, without coming to the Poliedro.
We live in times of unusual monsters. Shoshana Zuboff and Ignacio Ramonet have spoken of the capitalist regime of surveillance, Yanis Varoufakis of capitalism in the cloud, whose surplus value grows with our clicks. Byung Chul Han warns of the danger of psychopolitics, which stalks a society exploited by itself through the “technologies of the self”.
“Kindly Corporations”
This is not a mere polemic between a political leader and a Zionist mega-billionaire. Venezuela is the target of an attack of a cyber-fascist nature. A gigantic onslaught by global technology corporations. Up to 30 million attacks per minute to the Venezuelan computer system, to the platforms of public services were reported on the night of July 28 and the following days. And the telematic aggression continues. The goal is to collapse the State and plant the idea that it can be replaced by “kind corporations”. Kindness that we will pay for not with bits but with oil, gas, coltan and other resources.
As Cedric Durand says, since digital platforms have become “indispensable” factors, we must understand them on the same level as power grids, water distribution or telecommunications. Their management is related to the same problems that affect critical infrastructures, the disruption that their malfunctioning can cause to society.
It is not only about social networks. It is necessary to investigate what companies such as Starlink, which operates illegally in Venezuela and was said to have participated on July 28 in the sabotage of the CNE transmission network, are doing. What are virtual corporations doing with our radio electric spectrum, with our sovereignty, with our laws? Will we accept that platforms impose the electoral result?
We are, then, facing a problem of sovereignty. Of defense of the public against the technological beasts that come for our resources and for which they need to control the political systems, the governments. It is vital to address this problem from an integral perspective, updating telecommunications legislation, the regime that regulates the radio-electric spectrum and the laws on social responsibility in communication, among other aspects.
It is necessary to initiate a profound debate in Venezuelan society. Pedagogical, formative, proactive. It must begin in the family, in schools and academies. In the media, networks, streets and walls. A broad discussion in which we all assume our share of responsibility.
I am convinced that Nicolás Maduro would dispatch Musk before the third round. But the fulminating, definitive knockout to his miserable looting plans must come from a powerful and collective left hook. Are we training enough?
Source: Telesur, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English