Venezuela: Regime Launches App to Hunt Dissidents as Protest Death Toll Grows

The socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro announced on Tuesday that his regime’s VenApp social media platform will be used to report dissidents and “go against them” amid growing protests against Maduro’s attempt to steal the July 28 presidential election.

Nationwide protests against what is widely considered a sham election have so far left roughly a dozen dead and over a hundred injured, detained, or missing.

Protests continued on Wednesday in Venezuela in the aftermath of the nation’s socialist-controlled electoral authorities declaring Maduro the “winner” of Sunday’s election. The electoral authorities claim that Maduro obtained 51 percent of the votes and has thus been “reelected” for a new six-year term to begin in January 2025. The “election” was expectedly certified by regime-controlled electoral authorities on Monday afternoon but they have not released any finalized results at press time.

Venezuelan opposition leaders have contested the results and claim to be in possession of authentic vote tally documents that allegedly demonstrate that their candidate, Edmundo González, was the winner of the sham election. The opposition has asserted that González obtained an overwhelming majority of the votes on Sunday.

González’s group published digital versions of the tallies in its possession on a website while detailed vote breakdowns by state and municipality have been released on a separate website the absence of any documentation provided by the Maduro-run Venezuelan National Electoral Center (CNE).

The situation has triggered a new wave of protests against the ruling socialists, leading to fierce clashes with Venezuela’s police and national guard forces — all controlled by the Maduro regime — as well as with thugs at the service of Maduro such as the colectivos gangs.

The exact death toll remains uncertain as of Wednesday morning, with most reports on Tuesday indicating that the number hovers around a dozen — of which at least two were minors according to Alfredo Romero, the director of the Venezuelan non-government organization Foro Penal.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado – who won the opposition’s presidential primary but Maduro banned from running for public office – denounced on Wednesday morning that in addition to 177 arbitrary detentions, there have been reports of 11 forced disappearances and at least 16 homicides in the last 48 hours.

The regime’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab threatened prison time of up to six years for anyone who does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of the country. Maduro himself had threatened  a “bloodbath” if he did not “win” on Sunday.

Maduro rallied his sympathizers to join him at the Miraflores presidential palace on Tuesday afternoon. In his speech, the socialist dictator announced that the VenApp social media platform will now include a new feature to allow citizens to “anonymously” identify protesters and general political dissidents to the authorities.

“We are going to open a special Window of the VenApp page that we used for the 1×10 of the good government with page 58 – now we are going to open a special one for all the Venezuelan population so that there in a confidential way they can put the data in for me of all the delinquents who have threatened the people, who have attacked the people, so that there is swift justice,” Maduro said.  

VenApp is a social media platform launched in 2022 developed and operated by the Maduro regime. The platform claims on its website that it offers marketplace and delivery services. Additionally, the platform has a sub-section called “Line 58” that allows users to file complaints and make reports pertaining to Venezuela’s constantly failing basic utilities. 

The platform is also used by the Maduro regime’s “1×10 of the good government program,” an initiative which purportedly claims to be a “transparency and accountability” program for the notoriously corrupt Venezuelan government.

The 1×10 “program”  has also been used by the Maduro regime to divert state resources and organize its sympathizers ahead of sham electoral events by appointing a pro-Maduro socialist to rally ten other individuals in favor of Maduro.

Following Maduro’s announcement, reports surfaced on other social media accounts throughout the evening hours of Tuesday that showed VenApp was now sporting a report module that allows users to denounce “fascist guarimbas” (protests) and specify the type of “damage” caused by the dissidents.

Twitter users began reporting VenApp to smartphone app stores in an effort to have the regime’s application taken down. Following Tuesday evening’s reports, social media users reported on Wednesday morning that both Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store appear to have taken down the VenApp application as it is no longer available for download on those platforms.

The Maduro regime has made extensive use of proprietary applications, websites, and online platforms to exert control over Venezuela’s citizens. The most notable case is the Fatherland platform, an extensive social control program inspired by communist China’s social credit system that the Maduro regime built and deployed with the aid of the Chinese ZTE company. 

The platform handles an extensive amount of user data and is used by the Maduro regime to control and distribute fuel rations, meager welfare stipends, and other kinds of socialist “benefits.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.