Streaming services restricted in Venezuela as Guaidó discusses national plan from Andrés Bello Catholic University

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Network data shows that Venezuela’s state-run internet provider ABA CANTV (AS8048) restricted access to YouTube, Periscope, several Google services, Android mobile backend servers and Microsoft Bing on Friday 24 May 2019, from 3:25 p.m. UTC (11:25 a.m. VET). The nationwide block coincides with a live-streamed event at Andrés Bello Catholic University, where alumnus Juan Guaidó is joining a panel on plans for the future of the country.

The disruption, which has nationwide impact, matches similar restrictions that have been observed through recent days. Filters have been implemented prior or during major public appearances in recent instances as well as reactively after the start of broadcasts. Data show that each of the disruptions are consistent with methods used to filter online content in Venezuela.

 

Each NetBlocks web probe measurement consists of latency round trip, outage type and autonomous system identity aggregated in real-time to assess service availability and performance in a given country.

The new disruptions show the continuation of ephemeral, or intermittent internet censorship imposed by the state appearing to target critical speech. Data are consistent with previous targeted disruptions during public appearances by Juan Guaidó, and during sessions of Venezuela’s National Assembly. The brief, targeted blocks are introduced in addition to long-running online censorship of news media and campaign websites.

Update: Access to affected services has been restored approximately 20 minutes after the conclusion of Guaidó’s presentation at the university hall:

Past incidents of network filtering in Venezuela have lasted from twelve minutes to over twenty hours, when YouTube was restricted hours before the country’s first nationwide power outage.

 

Methodology

Internet performance and service reachability are determined via NetBlocks web probe privacy-preserving analytics. Each measurement consists of latency round trip time, outage type and autonomous system number aggregated in real-time to assess service availability and latency in a given country. Network providers and locations are enumerated as vantage point pairs. The root cause of a service outage may be additionally corroborated by means of traffic analysis and manual testing as detailed in the report.

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