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    Excellent discussion, thanks! I found Garrie's comments about the role of social media in this farc Archived Message

    Posted by brooks on February 3, 2019, 2:55 pm, in reply to "[George Galloway and Adam Garrie] The History Boys 16: Venezuela, Maduro and Latin America"

    ical coup - and the collusion of corporations like Twitter and Facebook - particularly interesting. Short excerpt:

    Getting wise to that [i.e. the role social media played in Syria in transmitting inconvenient truths from on the ground that contradicted the official narrative] they've realized that you've got to control the social media narrative. And so you had the phenomenon - speaking of this guy, Juan Guaido, the fake president of Venezuela - he had the blue checkmark on twitter, was tweeting images of himself swearing himself in as president in the middle of the street .....On his twitter biography he didn't update his old job: so you now have the phenomenon of someone who's being recognized throughout the western world for a stunt that he pulled without even updating his own biography on Twitter.
    They ought to have an I'm-the-President-of-Venezuela Challenge, and have the kids in Oklahoma and Texas, and Swindon, and Marseilles do the same thing.

    I am skeptical about a few of Galloway's statements towards the end of the program, e.g. about how draconian crime laws are in Cuba and how little real economic reform there's been in Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro which sounded a bit exaggerated to me. Will have to check them out

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