Hugo Chávez embraces Twitter to fight online 'conspiracy'

Hugo Chávez on his TV show, Alo Presidente. Photograph: Prensa Miraflores/EPA

Think of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, or an irresistable force meeting an immovable object, or a giant round peg in a tiny square hole, and you get the idea: Hugo Chávez meets Twitter.

Venezuela's prolix president, a leader who does not speak so much as bathe in words, thousands of them at a time, is embracing the microblogging site, which caps utterances at 140 characters.

Chávez opened a Twitter account yesterday, using the tag "cadanga", which in Venezuelan Spanish means daring or rebellious.

"Comrades, @Chavezcandanga has been reserved, soon we will have messages there from our comandante," Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of the president and head of the communications watchdog, tweeted from his own account.

The page @Chavezcandanga on twitter.com had more than 25,000 followers this morning. His first tweet in Spanish landed at 14 minutes after midnight: "Hey how's it going? I appeared like I said I would: at midnight. I'm off to Brazil. And very happy to work for Venezuela. We will be victorious!!" he said.

How regularly the president will compress his freewheeling, folksy, meandering, epic discourses into the new medium remains to be seen. He is a talented TV communicator but by his own admission does not know when to shut up.

His Sunday show, Alo Presidente (Hello President), a largely unscripted monologue, often exceeds seven hours, amounting to 54,000 words, or 333,000 characters, about the length of a romance novel.

The newspaper El Nacional ran the story with a picture of the socialist leader in full flow under the disbelieving headline: "In 140 characters?"

Under pressure from economic problems and legislative elections in September, Chávez has told followers to wage a "media war" for hearts, minds and votes.

His popularity has fallen below 50%, according to recent polls, but in previous campaigns the former tank commander has won back support with a mix of charisma, anti-poverty measures and populist giveaways, such as free fridges and matresses.

In addition to his Sunday show and online column Chávez routinely compels all radio and TV stations to broadcast his speeches and ceremonial events live.

Last month he ordered followers to use social networking sites to combat opponents, especially students who use Facebook and other sites to organise protests against the government.

"The internet is a battle trench because it is bringing a current of conspiracy," he said. In the wrong hands tweeting could be a form of terrorism, he added.

Twitter's popularity in Venezuela has exploded to more than 200,000 active accounts – growth last year exceeded 1,000% – giving it one of Latin America's highest per capita rates of usage.

The president promised to launch his own website to promote what he calls his 21st century socialist revolution. "I'm going to put a lot of information there. It's going to be a bombardment."

source : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/28/hugo-chavez-twitter-venezuela

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