Amid a high-stakes election showdown, Venezuela has taken drastic measures by blocking access to Binance and X, stoking fears of an all-out assault on digital freedoms.
Venezuela Blocks Binance as Election Showdown Heats Up
Amid turmoil surrounding the contested presidential election results, the Venezuelan government has restricted access to many online sites, including the cryptocurrency exchange Binance and the social networking platform X, Cointelegraph shares.
There was a post by the local anti-censorship group VE sin Filtro to X on August 9 in which it stated:
According to the Latin American-focused X account of the exchange:
Customers could rest easy knowing that their money was secure with Binance, which was "monitoring the situation closely to address it in the best and quickest way possible."
In Venezuela, citizens are eager to get their hands on cryptocurrency using Binance's peer-to-peer (P2P) service, which allows users to instantly trade fiat currency for cryptocurrency.
VPNs are a great way to bypass censorship, according to VE sin Filtro.
The Aug. 9 Binance suspension follows a statement made by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a public speech, according to Reuters, in which he instructed telco regulator Conatel to temporarily block access to X within the country.
Maduro’s Government Strikes at X Amid Election Chaos
A public feud recently broke out between Maduro and Elon Musk, owner of X. They have each challenged one other to battle, and each has accepted.
At the same time, the internet monitoring initiative NetBlocks also blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal:
Protests broke out across Venezuela following the July 28 presidential election, which both Maduro and his opponent Edmundo González asserted as winners.
In the absence of a definitive tally, the government-run electoral commission declared Maduro victorious with slightly more than 51% of the vote. González asserts that he received approximately 70% of the vote based on the printouts his party obtained from polling machines.
Censorship Surge Sparks Global Condemnation
The US, EU, UK, and a number of South American nations have all demanded thorough vote tallies and refused to accept Maduro as president.