A Venezuelan military commander spreads fake news

Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the primaries for Venezuela's main opposition coalition, who will not run in the presidential elections scheduled for July 28 because she was banned by Chavismo, denounced over the weekend that a military commander had spread fake news that opponents of Venezuela's dictator Nicolas Maduro He intends to terminate the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (Fanb), the country's armed forces, if they come to power.

“It is very serious that those responsible for the senior military command are spreading false information – which they themselves know to be false – about my position towards the national armed forces,” Machado said on Sunday (23), according to information from the Efecto website. Kukuyo.

On Saturday (22), the head of the FNB's Strategic Operations Command (CEONP), Domingo Hernandez Larez, published on

Subsequently, the Caçadores de Fake News group released a video on the same social network with the original photos, showing that the frame behind Machado was empty. In other words, the messages were entered digitally.

“The most serious aspect of the incident is that the top military authority’s tweet received more than 5,500 retweets and more than 6,800 likes, most of them from accounts run by military officers. Many of them will never know that this is fake news,” the group warned.

After the exclusion of Maria Corina Machado, the main name of the opposition and the winner of the primaries of the largest anti-Chavismo bloc last year, and the difficulties that prevented the registration of the candidacy of her replacement, Corina Llores, the coalition’s candidate in the presidential elections. In contention in July will be Edmundo González, who appears ahead of Maduro in most opinion polls.

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