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own TV show. In a broadcast that aired in March 2010, the self-proclaimed leader of the Bolivarian Revolution even attacked the Internet as “a battle trench” that was bringing “a current of conspiracy”; anyone who used “Twitter, the Internet [and] text messaging” to criticize his regime was engaging in “terrorism.” Chavez had plenty of reasons to worry about the Internet. A jailed judge had started using Twitter to keep in touch with her followers from prison, while the director of an opposition TV station used it to denounce a conspiracy to oust him. Chavez’s outburst was more than a rhetorical flourish. It seems that, much like his American detractors, he was also under the impression that Twitter was the driving force behind the protests in Iran.

As the Venezuelan opposition started using Twitter to mobilize its supporters, Chavez changed his mind. In late April 2010, Diosdado Cabello, the head of Venezuela’s communications watchdog and an aide close to Chavez, announced on his own Twitter account that his boss was about to join the site. “Comrades, @chavezcandanga has been reserved, soon we will have messages there from our Comandante,” tweeted Cabello. (In Spanish, candanga means “the devil,” but Venezuelans also use the term to describe someone naughty and wild.) Within twenty-four hours of signing up for Twitter, Chavez had 50,000 followers, and within just one month, he gained more than 500,000, making him one of the most popular foreign politicians on the predominantly English-speaking site. His love affair with technology quickly expanded to other devices and platforms; in July 2010 he even widely praised “a little apparatus” (an iPod) that his daughter gave him. “I have like 5,000 songs,” boasted Chavez. “It’s tiny, I remember having to go around with a bunch of cassette tapes before.” The Bolivarian Revolution was turning high-tech.

So far, the tweeting Chavez, unlike his real combative self, has been charming and polite. Responding to criticism from a sixteen-year-old Mexican girl who accused him of being a dictator, Chavez responded quite politely: “Hello Mariana, the truth is I’m an anti-dictator, and I love my beautiful Mexico.” When a Venezuelan Twitter user named Desiree tweeted out her admiration for Chavez, the latter responded, “My dear Desiree, I send you a kiss.” Chavez also promised to convince his buddy Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, to start using Twitter as well. And he is putting Twitter to some creative uses as well; only three months after he set up an account on the service, he boasted that he had already received nearly 288,000 requests for help from citizens. In July 2010 Chavez made international headlines by tweeting about his quixotic quest to exhume the remains of his hero Simón Bolívar, the nineteenth-century aristocrat who liberated much of Latin America from Spanish rule. “What impressive moments we’ve lived tonight! Rise up, Simón, as it’s not time to die!” tweeted the Venezuelan leader.

The secret of Chavez’s popularity on Twitter lies not only in his charisma but also in his leverage of government resources to bolster his crusade. Just a few days after joining the service, Chavez dispelled any illusions that Twitter was a minor and temporary distraction for him. “I’ve created my own Chavezcandanga mission to answer the messages, and we’re even going to create a fund for the mission to provide many things that are now missing and that are urgent,” said Chavez in a televised cabinet meeting. To that effect, he promised to allocate two hundred staffers—funded with public monies—to help him win the Twitter war. Holding up a BlackBerry in front of the camera, Chavez told his TV audience that Twitter was his “secret weapon” and dismissed the idea he was using a capitalist tool. “The Internet can’t be just for the bourgeoisie; it’s for the ideological battle as well,” declared Chavez, boasting that he was gaining two hundred new followers per minute.

But I Saw It on the Spinternet!

The evolution of Chavez’s reaction to Twitter—strong ideological opposition followed by a wide