Venezuela’s Maduro signs decree blocking X access for 10 days

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday said he has signed a resolution to block access to social media platform X in the country for 10 days.

Maduro has frequently railed against X owner Elon Musk since the country’s July 28 presidential election. X was formerly Twitter.

Maduro and the electoral authority have said that the president won a third term in the election, though the opposition claims victory and says it has the vote counts to prove it. Neither Maduro nor the electoral body have released detailed vote tallies.

In the days after the vote, protests from Venezuelans across the country and abroad broke out demanding Maduro step down and to honour a win by opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.

The protests were largely promoted on social media.

The leftist president earlier this week had asked his supporters to also abandon messaging application WhatsApp in favour of Telegram or WeChat, saying the app was being used to threaten the families of soldiers and police officers.

Maduro has also clashed publicly with Musk since the election.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas and Vivian Sequera; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle)