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Venezuela election: twitter thread debunks some of the anti-Venezuela fake news circulating on social media (x.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by iie@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

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The twitter thread is referenced in this excellent article by the same journalist, Alan MacLeod, which I posted here yesterday, but I think it deserves its own post.

Thread reader: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1818050593468072023.html

If you don't feel like clicking a link, here are the tweets transcribed, with some links added:

https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818050593468072023 [Thread] There is a coup d'etat attempt underway here in Venezuela 🇻🇪, fueled by tons of fake news. In this thread, I'll debunk some of the most egregious and viral fake stories circulating. Add your own in the replies.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818052769082704031 A viral video claims that leftist thieves are stealing ballot boxes. In reality, these are aircon units. Ballot boxes are small brown cardboard boxes, barely larger than a shoebox. These giant appliances bear no resemblance to ballot boxes
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818053257115123891 This is what a ballot box in Venezuela actually looks like.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818054183485915218 This video, claiming to show huge clashes between protestors and police today is going viral. But, as @ldejesusreyes and others have noted, this video is 7 years old.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818059536583823366 This image, which many claim to be official election results, has been seen by tens of millions of people. It claims that the vote count is 109%. But actually, all that happened is that the three minor opposition candidates pictured got 4.6% of the vote together, not each.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818064977078755666 People are claiming this image is from the national electoral council (CNE), and the charts on the screens show a Gonzalez victory. But this isn't from the CNE at all. Rather, it is from Mercal Aragua, a totally different organization with no access to voting information
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818078328924074438 The opposition is also blatantly using a bot network to boost their narrative on social media. HT: @JulianMaciasT [image 1] [image 2]
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818154265040335139 I know for a fact that this is fake news, because I was right there in this crowd as this video was taken. It was, in fact, the opposition that tried to shut down this Caracas polling station. A group of over 100 right-wing demonstrators crowded round the entrance to stop people from entering.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818178188989575386 Elon Musk himself retweets a video purporting to show protestors tearing down a statue of President Hugo Chavez today. But this video is from 2017.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818367339987185809 The widely circulated images of a man in Aragua "murdered by government" are completely fake, as this video, shared by @BrianMteleSUR clearly shows. He just gets up and leaves, after he "dies".
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818453132667421160 Perhaps the most important fake news is that the opposition actually won 73% of the vote. The US government has fueled these allegations. But I spoke to dozens of American electoral observers here, and they told a very different story. My report: [his article which I posted yesterday]
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818484943787335999 Versions of this image, which purport to show a police officer pointing a gun at a defenseless woman and child, have been seen by millions of people. But video evidence clearly shows that the police officer is unarmed, and is actually waving his arms at her. HT: @JulianMaciasT [image] [video]
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818514556643123509 This is total nonsense. I've been speaking with people flying out from the airport, and it is operating completely normally. There is no takeover of the airport at all. And as for Maduro, he just gave a speech tonight at the presidential palace, in front of thousands of people. [image 1] [image 2]
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818518506578546871 This video has 1.7 million views, and 21,000 likes. But it is highly misleading: the video is from 2017.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818640163246858738 Right-wing Spanish politician Isabel Diaz Ayuso jumps on the fake news bandwagon, sharing a 2017 clip, as if it was from this week. Expect a lot more of this in the coming days. HT: @JulianMaciasT
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818745132709298436 This viral video has been seen by millions. It claims to show the Venezuelan 🇻🇪 military massacring peaceful protestors. Two problems: 1) It is from 2016 🤦 2) It is from Turkiye 🇹🇷
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1818750336850375160 You'll never believe this, but Alex Jones is putting out fake news on Venezuela, falsely claiming Maduro has ordered the arreat of his opposition opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez.
https://x.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1819387180252364998 Right-wing Colombian senator Maria Fernanda Cabal shares a video of Maduro's men torturing their opponents. The problem? It is actually a clip from the Netflix show, Simón.

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[–] tocopherol@hexbear.net 14 points 2 years ago

Simple point to argue with lib election deniers:

100 opposition supporters arrive at a voting center in central Caracas at 6 pm, attempting to force polling stations to close exactly on time.

If the election is rigged why would the opposition try to reduce the number of people able to vote? US news articles I read claiming it was illegitimate also just say there were "irregularities" but don't mention what those irregularities were, and for evidence they quote average opposition voters who say things like "no way do so many people support Maduro, it has to be rigged, I just know it." Basically the same things a Trump supporter would say about the election being rigged.

[–] TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Anyone have any good links on what he has done for the country and all? I am curious and yall seem fairly on point with information to back things up.

[–] iie@hexbear.net 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This article by the same author includes some information

Here are two interesting quotes from the article:

U.S. sanctions have devastated the country. But the Maduro administration appears to have successfully weathered the worst of the storm. Stores are full again, inflation has been tamed, and Venezuela now produces 96% of the food it consumes. On top of that, Maduro’s signature housing policy, Misión Gran Vivienda Venezuela, just celebrated the building of its five-millionth apartment. “Venezuela is healing” is a common slogan across the country.

and on elections:

Many U.S. observers who spoke with MintPress were quick to compare the Venezuelan system favorably with their own. “I am actually kind of blown away by how advanced [the Venezuelan electoral system] is, particularly compared to the backward nature of the U.S., so I am completely impressed,” Jodi Dean, a professor and political scientist, said.

[...]

Elizabeth Burley, a representative of Unión de Vecinos, a Los Angeles tenants’ union, spent election day monitoring voting in La Guaira state and noted a number of superior features of Venezuelan democracy, including that the polling system is automated and completely consistent between localities. Furthermore, she said, Venezuelan elections are held on Sunday rather than midweek as they are in the U.S., allowing more people to participate. Burley noted that she was able to go inside stations and observe everything and that there were witnesses from both government and opposition parties present. Apart from a few verbal exchanges between left and right-wing voters, she said, events proceeded in a state of calm.

This list by dessalines might be a decent place to look for more information. It focuses on refuting attacks against Venezuela, but there should be some good information in the mix about what Maduro has done. The important context to keep in mind is that Venezuela is under more than 900 sanctions and other punitive measures, which have severely hampered the economy

[–] SoJB@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I hope Venezuelans do not make the same mistake the US made.

We have a word for people who try to overthrow a democratically elected government using violence and propaganda.

They’re called terrorists, and every single one of them deserves justice.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 6 points 2 years ago

Lmao, the USA is funding these fascists

[–] iie@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago

just the US being the largest "state sponsor of terrorism" on the planet

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago

Sorry sweaty but a terrorist is when a brown person has a gun

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What's the rebuttal to the argument that the numbers are too clean and looks to be from percentages to votes, not vice versa?

[–] iie@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Can you link to the argument?

[–] gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/07/31/suspicious-data-pattern-in-recent-venezuelan-election/

[–] iie@hexbear.net 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

To talk about this argument we need to know where the numbers are from.

This author appears to have gotten them from a screenshot someone sent him

P.S. I haven't checked any of these numbers myself. I'm assuming the screenshots that Zambrano sent are the real thing. If he's scamming me here I'm gonna be really angry!

We need to see that screenshot and investigate where its numbers are from

In the meantime, there is a possible benign explanation, but it's only speculation:

P.P.S. Commenter Ryan points out that you could also explain this data pattern as a result of sloppy post-processing, if votes were counted correctly, then reported to the nearest percentage point, and then some intermediary mistakenly multiplied the (rounded) percentages by the total vote and reported that. I have no idea; you'd want to know where those particular numbers were coming from.

I'm suspicious because I haven't seen many people talking about this. You'd think there would be a feeding frenzy... or maybe there is and I'm just out of the loop