Hugo Chavez Threatens to Shoot YouTube, Destroy the Internet

What must an ambitious dictator do to silence his political opponents? El Presidente Hugo Chavez closed down the broadcast station that had challenged his authority. But the station refuses to stay down!

Over at YouTube, El Observador Online is posting videos of its newscasts on a special YouTube channel available to anyone in the world over the internet.

So Chavez has succeeded in shutting down the old media that challenged him--the transmitters, the broadcasts--but the content continues being produced and disseminated. The media revolution has only begun to be felt by the dictators of the world.

Chavez means to recreate the successes of Mugabe's Zimbabwe and Fidel's Cuba, in his own little dictatorship. But Venezuela was a democracy before Chavez began destroying the rule of law, and many Venezuelans may not wish to join Zimbabweans and Cubans in the 17th century existence they enjoy.

The real revolution is what the new technologies are bringing to all of the world. Decentralisation of information, of the means of production, of the means of distribution. The internet is only the beginning, Hugo. You can try to shoot YouTube and destroy the internet--but that would make you a reactionary--a couter-revolutionary. You would be buried and never missed.

Better re-consider your plans, Hugo. The times, they are a changing.

Update: See this CNN newsreporton the YouTube insurrection, and click on the CNN news video reporting on the use of text messaging in the Venezuelan opposition movement.