Caracas Chronicles

2021 was an important year for feminist activism in Venezuela: new organizations and platforms were built, there was more activism for the rights of gender-diverse individuals, and there were strong digital campaigns throughout the year: #YoTeCreo and #GarzonViolador really broke the internet. There were also important obstacles, like the imprisonment of activist Vanessa Rosales for helping a 13-year-old girl who had been raped get an abortion. Still, this year’s 8M saw significantly less conversation on women’s rights. “Activism for women’s rights hasn’t particularly decreased, but the conversation around it certainly has. There’s a lot of digital fatigue,” says feminist activist Andrea Paola Hernández. 

Probox analyzed and compared social media activism and digital protests from 2021 to 2022.

• Between January 2021 and March 2022, Probox registered 37 trends positioned in Venezuela related to women, feminist movements, demands for their rights and complaints of abuses and femicides. These labels accumulate approximately 2,104,085 messages. 
• The civil society positioned the most trends, 25 in total. However, it only generated 18.35% of the messages in this regard. On average, 88.39% of these messages were made by real users. Most of the protest is organized through tuitazos, where the repetition of messages in a coordinated way can be identified as a possible automated action.

What did 2021 look like? 

• The largest trending topic promoted by civil society during 2021 was #GarzonViolador, with 220,000 tweets, due to the rape of a Venezuelan woman in Argentina during a job interview.
• The second-largest civil society hashtag was #NiUnaMenos on February 23rd, 2021 with around 34,700 tweets denouncing the disappearance, rape and murder of Eduarlis Falcón in Turén, Portuguesa. 98.7% of these messages were made by real users.
• #YoTeCreo had 6,595 tweets, with messages supporting victims denouncing sexual violence in Venezuela. 
• #NiUnFemicidioMasVzla, #SaludParaTodas, #NoMásCrímenesDeOdio, #ConMisHijosNo, #AbortoLegalYaVzla were also treding topics throughout the year, each hashtag references a different problem. 
• Chavismo only positioned one trending topic about “women’s rights”: #LaMujerEsVida 

What does 2022 look like?

• 37 trends have been positioned in 2022, three of them by chavismo with the largest number of messages, 44.01%. Three promoted hashtags come from MIPPCI: #MujerValiente, #MujerEsPatria and #MujeresEnDefensaDeLaPatria.
• On March 8th, for Women’s Day, the MIPPCI promoted #MujerEsPatria with 220,000 tweets and 62.19% of their messages were made by possible bots. This label was a trend in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
• On March 8th, chavismo also promoted #MujeresValientes through medical missions and CDI accounts in Venezuela. It generated around 240,000 messages, at least 82.44% of its tweets were made by possible accounts with inauthentic behavior. This label was a trend in Venezuela and Cuba.
• On March 10th, the MIPPCI positioned #MujeresEnCiencia with at least 300,000 messages, an average of 69.29% of them being carried out by possible bots. In the tweets the government promotes a video talking about Venezuelan women in science, IVIC workers, etc.