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Alan MacLeod

Jul 29 • 18 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X

[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/ImMeme0/status/1817764920429003129?t=rUYyLN2UDh_re67FTITKIA&s=19

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/ImMeme0/status/1817764920429003129?t=rUYyLN2UDh_re67FTITKIA&s=19

This is what a ballot box in Venezuela actually looks like.

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/mluciaramirez/status/1817985633450868752?t=wkFfHzMfJ7tKbpembtC60A&s=19

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.

This is a simple data entry error from someone making an infographic for the TV.

These are not the official results. The official results add up to 100%.

Dishonest actors are promoting this to spread the idea that the official election results are fraudulent.

@ldejesusreyes 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.

The opposition is also blatantly using a bot network to boost their narrative on social media

HT: @JulianMaciasT

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.

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.

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".

Blatantly fake news!

https://x.com/BrianMteleSUR/status/1818316729455382952?t=plnNU2G0RbI1hP8zlrEtDg&s=19

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:

mintpressnews.com/venezuela-whil…

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

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. So much for fleeing the country!

https://x.com/ImMeme0/status/1818097636982837377

This video has 1.7 million views, and 21,000 likes. But it is highly misleading: the video is from 2017.

https://x.com/ImMeme0/status/1818097636982837377

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/IdiazAyuso/status/1818396955682259080?t=WjSI5PnqVX3fV6bv_nHo4g&s=19

@JulianMaciasT 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/jhonfDerecha/status/1818137930084282644?t=XWhVISFFoHZe67eSUi9f6w&s=19

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/RealAlexJones/status/1818648282031100332?t=wkHnKqCE8LbCNo1CpVmkRg&s=19

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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Alan MacLeod

@AlanRMacLeod

Aug 7

[Thread] There is an orchestrated media war being carried out against Venezuela🇻🇪.

Its goal is regime change, and it is being led by liberal outlets like the Guardian.

In this thread, I'll dissect their tactics, so you can understand how they pass propaganda off as reporting.

What is the "evidence" of electoral fraud the Guardian presents?

Oh, it is an "analysis" carried out by the opposition itself, as well as hearsay from sympatheirc academics.

Let's not inform readers that the opposition has pulled this trick in every election since 2000 (except the ones they won), where they cry fraud, and have never presented any credible evidence whatsoever.

Let's also not inform readers that there were actually nine opposition candidates running against Maduro, and that only Gonzalez refused to say he would accept the results.

That "number" is four countries -- all of them right-wing Latin American nations.

Even the United States 🇺🇸 has walked back its Gonzalez claims, the Biden Administration clarifying that it has NOT recognized Gonzalez as the victor.

Last time I checked last week, more than 40 countries had endorsed the elections and recognized Maduro -- over ten times as many nations as have recognized Gonzalez.

Yet, through verbal slight-of-hand, the Guardian is presenting Maduro as isolated, and the extremist, denialist position as mainstream.

Read 15 tweets

Alan MacLeod

@AlanRMacLeod

Aug 5

Palestine: They are genociding us.

Israel: Yes, we are genociding them.

The West: This is such a complex, nuanced problem. It is anti-semitic to jump to any conclusions.

Israel has many powerful backers in corporate media.

Among them is Rueprt Murdoch, the billionaire press baron.

My investigation found a network of links between Murdoch and the Israeli national security state.

Find out just what they are here:

mintpressnews.com/rupert-murdoch…

An extremely timely article, given that the US is supporting a coup attempt there:

I spoke to dozens of US observers of the Venezuelan election, and they told me they saw nothing suspicious, and they reject the US govt's fraud narrative.

Read here:

mintpressnews.com/venezuela-whil…

Read 4 tweets

Alan MacLeod

@AlanRMacLeod

Aug 1

[Thread] Western media's finest propagandists are pulling out all the stops, trying to delegitimize the elections in Venezuela 🇻🇪.

In this thread, I'll dissect their tactics, line by line, using this BBC article as an example, so you can understand how they do it.

First sentence in, and they have already poisoned the well, directly asserting that Nicolas Maduro "controls" the election, and that the whole process is "carefully curated."

Second: They breathlessly repeat opposition claims of fraud, without informing readers that the opposition has claimed they have won literally every single election since 2000, have produced zero evidence for this, and have, every time, been proven to be lying.

Not telling readers this is a crime against journalism and tantamount to incitement.

This is absollutely ludicrous. There are plenty of opposition-aligned media here.

And the idea that a single person in Venezuela doesn't know that the opposition claims they won is ridiculous.

Read 14 tweets

Alan MacLeod

@AlanRMacLeod

Jul 27

I ran into the amazing @RaniaKhalek, who told me that the United States is trying to destroy the Venezuelan government, and is already crying fraud in the upcoming elections. 🇻🇪

"There is no comparison" between US and Venezuelan elections, @GloriaLaRiva, former presidential candidate for the @pslnational told me.

In Venezuela fraud is "not possible", while in the US, the Dems and Republicans are fighting to keep 3rd parties off the ballot.

@GloriaLaRiva @pslnational The final pro-government rally was massive.

More than one million people poured I to central Caracas to hear President Maduro talk, sing and dance.

And then they partied for hours.