VPItv ( Spanish:'' Venezolanos por la Información TV''; Venezuelans for Information TV) is a

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

n online television channel founded by Fabiola Colmenares and Leonardo Trechi. The channel is based in

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

and

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 2017, several of their journalists were subject of attacks, and since 2019 the website and its YouTube channel have been continuously censored in Venezuela by the

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and president of Venezuela since 2013, with his presidency under dispute since 2019. Beginning his working life as a bus driver, Maduro rose to become a trade unio ...

government.

History

''VPItv'' was founded by former Miss Venezuela contestant Fabiola Colmenares and Popular Will politician Leonardo Trechi on 10 October 2015. Transmissions began on 6 December 2015 and officially became live on 19 December 2016. The

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel was established on 21 December 2015. Following the

2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela on 6 December 2015 to elect the 164 deputies and three indigenous representatives of the National Assembly. They were the fourth parliamentary elections to take place after the 1999 constitution, ...

which the

MUD A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

-led opposition won over the PSUV, VPItv (together with VIVOplay and Capitolio TV) started transmissions of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

From 2010 until January 2016, ANTV was the only television channel authorized to broadcast PSUV-led National Assembly sessions.

Coverage during the crisis in Venezuela

During the

2017 Venezuelan protests The 2017 Venezuelan protests were a series of protests occurring throughout Venezuela. Protests began in January 2017 after the arrest of multiple opposition leaders and the cancellation of dialogue between the opposition and Nicolás Maduro's g ...

, Venezuelan internet users reported several live streaming websites including VPItv were inaccessible on 7 April 2017.

Attacks on reporters

On April 6, 2017, reporter Elvis Flores was arrested while covering the protests during the

constitutional crisis In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this d ...

. At the time of his arrest, police took Flores’ equipment and VPItv was subsequently forced to stop the broadcasts for the next 8 hours. The reporter was released 9 hours later and was reportedly beaten. During the

2017 Venezuelan regional elections Regional elections were held in Venezuela on 15 October 2017 to elect the executive position of all 23 federal entities. This marked the first state executive election not held on the same date as elections for state legislatures, and the second ...

in Tachira State, VPItv journalist Lorena Bornacelly and cameraman Óscar Duque were robbed of their work equipment and belongings from their car, which was parked near a polling station where they were working. On October 16, 2017, the day following the regional elections, protesters in Bolívar State attacked VPItv journalist Carlos Suniaga. According to National Union of Press Workers of Venezuela (SNTP), Carlos Suniaga was threatened and beaten by opposition supporters around the Regional Electoral Office, additionally, they forced him to erase the material from the protest and kicked him in the back. Suniaga later said that both the opposition and supporters of the government must respect the work of the press.

2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis

Following the 2019 presidential crisis, VPItv and other private TV channels has been the main target of censorship by the Bolivarian government. Access to YouTube is blocked frequently to prevent CANTV users from watching its live stream. Live streams of the National Assembly sessions and Guaidó's speeches have been regularly disrupted for CANTV users since the end of January, mainly affecting access to streaming platforms like

Periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

, Bing, Twitter video, and YouTube, along with some other Google services.

DNS blocking Domain Name System blocking, or DNS blocking / filtering is a strategy for making it difficult for users to locate specific domains or websites on the Internet. It was first introduced in 1997 as a means to block spam email Email spam, also refer ...

is employed to generate the disruptions. The longest block of YouTube to date started during an Assembly session on 6 March, lasting 20 hours. Between 29 and 30 January, at least eleven press personnel were arrested. On the evening of 29 January, four journalists were arrested by the Maduro government while reporting near the Miraflores presidential palace—Venezuelan journalists Ana Rodríguez of VPItv and Maiker Yriarte of TV Venezuela, and Chilean journalists Rodrigo Pérez and Gonzalo Barahona of

TVN Chile TVN may refer to: * TVN (Australian TV channel), a former horse racing channel * Televisión Nacional de Chile, a public broadcaster * TVN (Indonesia), a former television station; predecessor of Rajawali Televisi * TVN (Norway), or TVNorge, a comm ...

. The two Venezuelan journalists were released; the Chilean journalists were deported. During 23 February clashes, there were numerous reports of Venezuelan authorities and paramilitaries attacking press workers, including workers of the Associated Press, Ecos del Torbes, La Prensa de Lara, Telemundo, TVVenezuela, VIVOplay, VPItv and others. After the events of 23 February to ship of humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Guaidó and Colombian President

Iván Duque Iván Duque Márquez (; born 1 August 1976) is a Colombian politician and lawyer who served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022. He was elected as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party in the 2018 Colombian presidential ...

's evening speech in Las Tienditas Bridge was similarly blocked for CANTV users in Venezuela. More disruptions recurred during the Lima Group session on the 24th and during the US Vice-president

Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...

's speech on 25 February. The livestream of the press conference of US Secretary of State

Mike Pompeo Michael Richard Pompeo (; born December 30, 1963) is an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served under President Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2017 to 2018 and as the 70th United State ...

and Colombian President

Iván Duque Márquez Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was Bulgari ...

on 15 April 2019 was disrupted for CANTV users.

References

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External links