Four Venezuelan NGOs—Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP), Acceso a la Justicia, Observatorio Venezolano de Fake News (OVFN), and Observatorio de Universidades (OBU)—recently launched the web portal Pulso Venezuela in both Spanish and English.

The main purpose of Pulso Venezuela is to provide reliable information regarding important issues like the rule of law and justice (handled by Acceso a la Justicia), official repression and the situation of political prisoners (in the hands of JEP), and the overall state of higher education in the country (handled by OBU).

At the same time, Pulso Venezuela is intended to be a trustworthy source of fact-checking against disinformation campaigns and fake news, a responsibility that falls primarily within the purview of OVFN. But this approach can extend to the site’s entire content in general.

During its virtual presentation on September 10, JEP’s coordinator, Martha Tineo, said that Pulso Venezuela was created to be “a technical antidote and an articulated and rigorous response to the institutional siege and the criminalization of the defense of human rights in our country.”

Ali Daniels, the co-director of Acceso a la Justicia, said: “Every day is a new wave of disinformation that disguises itself as information… The best of all is that our organizations have rigorous mechanisms to publish information, so there is a seriousness in allowing us to have them as a source.”

 Venezuela Verifica is a brand-new fact-checking site that happens to be the successor of Venezuela News, the outlet linked to Alex Saab.

In the last few years, the expansion of fact-checking has become part of the news ecosystem around the world: from specialized outlets that analyze and dismantle fake news and artificial narratives to journalistic enterprises that use it as part of their investigative efforts, like Bellingcat.

In Venezuela, we’ve seen this trend with both news outlets doing their own fact-checking (like Efecto Cocuyo’s Cocuyo Chequea) and dedicated fact-checking sites like OVFN, Cotejo.info (from NGO Medianálisis), and Cazadores de Fake News.

But this has not gone unnoticed by bad-faith actors, which are using fact-checking as a tool for spreading disinformation. Around the same time as Pulso Venezuela’s announcement, Cazadores reported on Venezuela Verifica, a brand-new fact-checking site that happens to be the successor of Venezuela News, the outlet linked to Alex Saab.

Back in mid-May, Venezuela News (VN) quickly shut down its operations right after Alex Saab was arrested in Caracas and extradited to the US. But in late August, all of VN’s social media accounts had a new name and logo while erasing their previous content on most of them.

CFN not only offers details about how those changes took place but also indicates that the name Venezuela Verifica actually comes from a short-lived media alliance created in 2020 by a group of Venezuelan outlets, including Efecto Cocuyo, Medianálisis, ProBox, OVFN, CFN, and others.

The most unsurprising finding of all is that, by just looking at its YouTube channel or Instagram account, Venezuela Verifica is basically Venezuela News’ content with a slight makeover. Even some of VN’s old faces are present, like Pedro Carvajalino. However, they brought new people onto its roster of presenters, like former VTV news anchor Boris Castellanos.

Cazadores’ report considers that, despite Venezuela Verifica’s claims of now being a fact-checking site, “it attributes itself that function without a public methodology nor a policy of corrections, functioning in practice as an initiative of partisan counter-propaganda.”

However, pseudo-news/fact-checking sites like Venezuela Verifica are a small part of the biggest challenge that initiatives like Pulso Venezuela face: the continuing presence of a structure of censorship and intimidation from the State against the press and freedom of speech at large.

It’s true that the information landscape in Venezuela has seen some changes since the events of January 3 and that independent media has seen a respite compared to what they had to go through during the Maduro years. But at the same time, it’s relevant to point out that the main legal architecture and instruments used to restrict access to news events or sources remain mostly untouched, while early gestures from the government have ended with little to show.

“We must seek that the themes of freedom of speech and of communication be a discussion of society as a whole… that those two themes can acquire social dimension, meaning that they’re themes of common sense that relate to the lives of everyone.”

In response to these and other related concerns, a coalition of Venezuelan media outlets, civil society groups, and individuals signed a manifesto, which begins with the following statement: “Venezuelans refuse to normalize censorship, harassment and silence imposed for 27 years of repression, therefore we repeat that freedom of speech is a fundamental right and an indispensable condition for a free society.”

The manifesto’s demands include halting judicial processes against journalists, lifting the digital blocking of websites and platforms, suppressing speech-limiting legislation like the Anti-Hate Law, reforming telecom regulator CONATEL, and ending the political use of State media.

This comes as the upcoming second round of talks between representatives of the 2015 National Assembly and the interim government is expected to include the subject of freedom of speech. But beyond that, there’s an important point made by Venezuelan communication scholar Marcelino Bisbal in the latest edition of academic magazine Revista Comunicación:

“How to make the issue of freedom of communication and therefore freedom of speech, not only a debate for communicators/journalists or a debate for elites? We must seek that the themes of freedom of speech and of communication be a discussion of society as a whole… that those two themes can acquire social dimension, meaning that they’re themes of common sense that relate to the lives of everyone.”

Most of the proposals that Bisbal offers in the article are not so different from those included in the manifesto, which are a series of reforms that could mean the dismantling of what is known as the “communicational hegemony” that chavismo has implemented for more than 20 years.

But there are notable gaps in those proposals that a reduction of the State’s role in the larger communication landscape cannot fill by itself. Some could be complemented by reestablishing competitiveness in the private sector and having an independent public service broadcaster, but there should be a part to play for our civil society as well, and Pulso Venezuela is a possible example of what that entails: when opacity becomes the norm, transparency is the best remedy.