While Colombia saw swelling protests against President Ivan Duque, his political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, was without his favorite incendiary device, Twitter.
The social media platform imposed a temporary ban on the former president on Thursday morning, disconnecting the far-right leader from his 5 million followers just when anti-government protest were warming up.
Switching to Facebook, where only 1.5 million people follow Uribe, the controversial president said he had been blocked from Twitter.
Uribe makes first joke in recent memory
Uribe broke the rules
Twitter Colombia confirmed Uribe had been temporarily banned, claiming the far-right leader had broken the social media platform’s rules.
In Uribe’s latest intimidation attempt, the former president had published the names and phone numbers of strike organizers on Wednesday last week.
The temporary ban has had a chilling effect on his party members, who were reminded that if their supreme leader could get banned, they most definitely could.
Additionally, none of Uribe’s minions have the reach of their boss; Duque has not even a fifth of Uribe’s followers, and he’s the president, or “sub-president” as he is more commonly known.
This has left the far-right ruling party almost powerless to counter the overwhelming support for the strikes.
“Uribistas” lose control of social media
While anti-government protesters and their social media campaigns have been dominating Twitter with announcement of protests and complaints of police repression, the “Uribistas” have been almost invisible during the week of protests.
Uribe, who is 67, doesn’t really know how Facebook works.
His followers’ desperate attempts to defend Duque, spread disinformation and stigmatize protests were muted by the mass activity of strike promoters and participants whose hashtags have been trending topics for a week.
On Wednesday, the seventh day of Uribe’s absence on Twitter, social media users were prolifically spreading information on the locations of anti-government protests.
Meanwhile, the far-right’s attempts to legitimize the discredited security forces have been muffled by the roar of public discontent on social media.