Operación Retuit: AI as a shield for Venezuelan journalism

This week, estrategIA brings you a very special article on using artificial intelligence to fight censorship in Venezuela, particularly through Operación Retuit, which we discussed in issue 47. Our contributor is César Batiz (his Wikipedia entry), an investigative journalist and director of the Venezuelan digital news outlet El Pitazo.

Historical context: this first-person account was published on 4 December 2024. Events, assessments and expectations retain the author's perspective at that time.

On 30 November, just two years had passed since the arrival of ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence application built by OpenAI. Yet its emergence set in motion a series of projects being developed in innovation laboratories in countries including the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada and Israel.

Seven months later, in June 2023, the study “A Survey of Generative AI Applications” counted 350 generative AI applications in use. That growth naturally brought growing pains. Plagiarism, bias and hoaxes emerged, raising the alarm over the risks of using AI.

In August 2024, 21 months after ChatGPT's arrival, we Colombian and Venezuelan journalists came together to use artificial intelligence as a shield to defend freedom of expression and protect the staff of 14 media outlets, launching Operación Retuit — Operation Retweet.

Operación Retuit is a news report we created in response to the threats arising from the state terrorism imposed by Nicolás Maduro's government after the presidential election of 28 July. Opposition candidate Edmundo González won that election with 67% of the vote, a victory the ruling authorities refused to recognise.

Both the initiative and its name turn prevailing narratives on their head in two ways. First, they demonstrate that generative artificial intelligence has a use in journalism when backed by quality and ethics. It is not simply a tool for evil, as a black-and-white view of this innovation's emergence would have it.

Second, the initiative puts a new spin on the narrative of terror deployed by Maduro's government and its current interior minister, Diosdado Cabello. For at least two years, intelligence agencies have been carrying out the so-called Operación Tuntún against opposition leaders and citizens. “Tuntún” is the onomatopoeic “knock-knock” of officers arriving at people's homes to arrest those targeted by repression.

Hence the name Operación Retuit. Its distinctive feature is that the programme is presented by la Chama and el Pana — colloquial Venezuelan terms for a woman and a man, respectively — two avatars created using generative AI. They present the reporting of Venezuelan journalists, with the support of colleagues at Connectas, the Latin American journalism hub based in Bogotá.

Less civic space, more fear¶

Operación Retuit was launched amid shrinking civic space and the persecution of dissent against Maduro's government. Since the start of the year, the National Assembly, dominated by Maduro's supporters, had passed laws threatening NGOs' ability to operate. Political figures and community leaders remained in the sights of Venezuelan intelligence and security agencies, restricting political activity in an election year.

Before 28 July, 25 people had been detained for reporting. A further 58 websites were blocked following an order issued by the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) to telecommunications operators in Venezuela, including Spain's Telefónica, preventing Venezuelans from accessing digital media and obtaining information. In addition, by June 2024, 14 radio stations had been ordered to close.

After 28 July and Maduro's theft of the election, the situation worsened. At midday on 29 July, street protests began in middle-class areas and working-class communities on the hillsides of Caracas. People were protesting against the stolen election.

From that point, a plan of state terrorism was set in motion that seemed to follow a prepared script. Maduro announced in advance that 2,000 people would be detained. Police and military personnel went out to meet that target. They arrested people passing protests without taking part, citizens standing outside their homes and, of course, demonstrators whose only weapons were their cries in support of democracy.

With the help of a network of informers funded through political patronage, police and military officers searched for those who had toppled statues of Chávez — protesters brought down five in the first 24 hours — or taken photographs and videos of the moment. Around ten journalists were imprisoned. Members of press teams in government bodies run by ruling-party supporters began calling journalists to warn that they could be arrested if they went out to cover the protests. Fear took root in the profession. Few colleagues dared return to the streets.

Experienced in working together¶

This escalation of state terrorism came at a time when we in independent digital media had recognised working in alliances as part of our strategy for confronting government censorship.

By 2014, there had been other experiences of collaboration in Latin America, but in transnational investigative journalism projects. These followed the recognition that, if criminals join forces to commit crimes, protect one another and launder money, journalists should also work together to scrutinise them. Organisations such as the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) and Fundación Gabo promoted these initiatives.

Alliances in Venezuela matured following the creation of independent digital media led by journalists committed to fighting censorship.

This helped bring about the Alianza Rebelde Investiga (ARI), comprising El Pitazo, Runrunes and TalCual, which covered eight national electoral processes between 2015 and 2024. It also enabled the emergence, in 2024, of La Hora de Venezuela, an initiative promoted by Connectas, and Venezuela Vota, proposed by El Pitazo.

La Hora de Venezuela and Venezuela Vota sought to build alliances that would enable access to and distribution of information both inside and outside Venezuela, involving more than 350 journalists.

La Hora de Venezuela brought together 14 media outlets across Latin America to produce 528 pieces. On 27, 28 and 29 July, Venezuela Vota produced a YouTube broadcast with information from more than 90 Venezuelan municipalities and 18 cities around the world. All content was shared with 140 media outlets in Latin America and Europe.

Although both alliances were active when the protests and repression began in Venezuela, state terrorism forced a tactical retreat, reflection and a search for alternatives that would allow us to continue our work. That was how Operación Retuit emerged.

The face of the media¶

Behind the dialogue between la Chama and el Pana, Operación Retuit's two avatars, lies the work of reporters in Venezuela and the script and voice production of colleagues in Bogotá, who put the finishing touches to the output of this first season.

Operación Retuit published 30 episodes in Spanish and English. The first episode alone, released on 14 August, received 400,000 views in 24 hours, and its impact was immediate both in Venezuela and abroad.

The initiative's innovative approach attracted coverage from around a hundred media outlets in ten languages worldwide, including The Guardian, the BBC, El País and CNN, as well as international journalism centres such as Nieman Lab, LatAm, IJNet and Journalism Review.

Operación Retuit is currently awaiting a second season, which will begin after the inauguration on 10 January. As long as there are stories to tell in confronting Venezuelan authoritarianism, la Chama and el Pana will return.

César Batiz

Investigative journalist and director of the digital news outlet El Pitazo

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