Venezuela lacks a functioning state that serves its citizens.
Those in power are focused on exploiting the country's resources and repressing anyone who seeks to restore democracy.
They are unable to manage public services and show no interest in serving the nation.
498 días después: hola, Caracas. 🤍
Fueron 498 días. Ni un día dejé de soñar con regresar luego de salir forzosamente. Algunos días lo veía muy lejano, me parecía que pasarían años hasta poder volver. Pero en ningún momento, incluso en los más difíciles, dejé de visualizar el volver a hacer mi vida en esta ciudad.
Fueron 498 días y al volver elegí empezar este ciclo haciendo lo que más me gusta: corriéndola, de madrugada, junto a mis amigos y a mi familia, los que nunca dejaron de estar para mí.
Volver en este momento no está exento de riesgos pero yo decidí asumirlos, así como lo han hecho cientos de personas que se vieron obligadas a marcharse por las muchas consecuencias de haber sufrido una dictadura.
Aún no es el país que quiero. Porque quedan cientos en las cárceles por motivos políticos, porque quedan cientos que aún no pueden regresar a su tierra y porque aún no tenemos instituciones independientes. Yo hoy aún no creo que pueda denunciar aquí que hace un año intentaron matarme en Bogotá confiando en obtener respuestas certeras. Pero creo, de igual forma, que en este momento la transición a la democracia solo será una realidad si todos hacemos nuestra parte para que se concrete. Desde mi área quiero aportar a ello.
Fueron 498 días. Hoy volví a casa y les prometo que no lo cambio por nada. Ver a Carlitos vivo y libre junto a todos mis amigos no tiene precio. Te extrañé y espero nunca volver a separarme de ti, Caracas.
Over 60 media outlets have been blocked in Venezuela in recent years. Some have been blocked for about 10 years.
Late last night, the blockades began to lift, with 8 Venezuelan and 2 international outlets becoming accessible on most major ISPs.
https://t.co/7X7JooFrMR
The Venezuelan administration, under Trump’s tutelage, announced last night that it will begin lifting the blockade on media outlets’ Internet domains and allow some freedom of expression.
Until now, the Venezuelan regime had not acknowledged its systematic Internet censorship.
The UN Fact-Finding Mission report cites the "Watch the Watchers" report among its sources on Venezuelan digital repression and surveillance.
https://t.co/7Fesm4pcx1
@conexionsegura@DFRLab@AtlanticCouncil
The UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela released a comprehensive report today on the country's repressive system.
The report focuses on pro-regime civilian armed groups and the mechanisms of social control, including digital surveillance.
https://t.co/zsIHlxPZPz
#Venezuela | State institutions behind repression, human rights violations & crimes against humanity remain intact despite limited human rights improvements in the country, the @UN Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela says in a new report.
More ➡️ https://t.co/L8fbRw0qiG
#HRC63
Sr. Smith, mi lenguaje se caracteriza por la claridad, no por la opacidad que usted gratuitamente le atribuye.
Su planteamiento incurre en el defecto del análisis contrafáctico: el pseudoargumento de la bifurcación simple. Pretende que responda qué hacer ante un acuerdo petrolero aislándolo de la crisis institucional.
Bajo un mandato institucional y democrático, las variables estructurales cambian por completo: las condiciones habrían sido superiores y soberanas desde el inicio. Gobernar es construir certidumbre jurídica y legitimidad, no elegir a ciegas entre las urgencias de la ilegalidad, se comprende que se conduce el destino de una nación, no los retazos de ella.
The @CIDH requested the Inter-American Court of Human Rights @IACHR to declare the Venezuelan State responsible for the arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial execution of Fernando Albán.
https://t.co/thxNQQpKGT
ATENCIÓN | ONG de derechos humanos exigimos que el nuevo diálogo en Venezuela facilitado por Estados Unidos se traduzca en hechos concretos y verificables.
Llamamos a priorizar un nuevo Tribunal Supremo y una nueva directiva del Consejo Nacional Electoral.
No hay razones técnicas ni legales que justifiquen postergar la renovación del CNE hasta diciembre, cuando la legislación vigente permite hacerlo en un plazo cercano a dos meses. Octubre es una fecha posible si hay voluntad política.
Advertimos que posponer la agenda electoral profundiza la desconfianza ciudadana tras años de promesas incumplidas.
Reiteramos el llamado a condiciones reales para participar, organizarse, informarse y protestar sin represión.
El diálogo tiene una oportunidad histórica de convertir los acuerdos en una ruta concreta hacia elecciones nacionales, parlamentarias y presidenciales libres, competitivas y verificables.
1/2 Thanks Gavin for an especially thoughtful exchange. I don't usually spend much time on social media but I wanted to engage here because it really brings out the heart of an important conversation.
First, on regulation, I think that “either concentrate it in the hands of a chosen few companies and politicians via regulation or distribute it widely” is a false choice. I know that there’s a sort of Silicon Valley shorthand where regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power, but I’ve always found this to be an overly simplified picture of the world. Many people outside this bubble think of regulation as something that constrains corporate power and benefits ordinary people. I don’t necessarily agree with that perspective either, rather I think it’s complicated and really depends on what the “regulation” consists of. But in particular I think that those in the “regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power” frame often underrate the decentralizing power of objective and fair institutional processes. A crude analogy is that the formal court system can sometimes feel stuffy and elitist, but it does a much better job of defending the rights of vulnerable individuals than the alternative, mob justice. At their best, institutions can vest power in ideas rather than people, and thereby decentralize that power.
This is why Anthropic has always made its policy proposals very carefully. We try very hard to make proposals that disadvantage (slow down) frontier AI companies while *advantaging* smaller competitors. California’s SB53 (which we supported), and even the much-maligned SB 1047 (which we were ambivalent on), completely exempt any company below a certain amount of revenue or model training costs from being covered at all (it was $500M for SB 53, lower for 1047 but we objected to that). More recently the testing process we’ve advocated for at CAISI and the White House involves more rigorous tests for frontier models than off-frontier models — something that differentially advantages challengers. Similarly, the “Pacing the Frontier” letter envisions (or at least Anthropic’s preferred implementation of it envisions) modulating the pace of the very best models while not constraining those who are catching up. This hurts the business interests of the frontier labs and helps challengers, including open-weights!
Overall my view is that AI is *structurally* a technology that tends to concentrate power, for reasons that have nothing to do with regulation (more to do with the extreme implications of the scaling laws). Open-weights do help some with this but are nowhere near a sufficient solution because they simply shift the concentration somewhat to those with the most compute and chips (which are roughly the frontier labs plus maybe hardware providers). By contrast I think the right “rules of the road” can simultaneously (a) address AI’s cyber/bio/alignment risks, (b) institutionally constrain the power of the frontier AI companies, and (c) leave room for open-weights models while also addressing the specific risks that they bring.
BTW I do not think that the events of the last few months have “failed to result in [my] preferred regulatory path”. The approach that the Trump administration is reported to be taking — pre-deployment testing for frontier models, and also testing of open-weights models when they get closer to the frontier — is one that I am very supportive of, though of course I have to see the details to be sure. I am also supportive of Demis Hassabis’ ideas around a FINRA-like entity. This contrasts with six months ago when most of the industry was still pushing for preemption of all state regulation and no apparent federal approach either.
🚨 EN DESARROLLO:
CANTV bloqueó @Reddit y las imágenes de @X nuevamente.
🛑 Estos bloqueos de tipo HTTPS son aplicados por CANTV desde las ~3:30 p.m. del 30 de julio.
(hora de Venezuela)
En el caso de X volvieron a bloquear los dominios:
https://t.co/DAH89y7Lwu
https://t.co/mcUXho6WvU
https://t.co/M1u0q4LXQY
que son necesarios para la interfaz web y contenido multimedia, y habían sido desbloqueados el 25 de junio. #internetVE