Venezuelans turn to Zello, according to María, to fill the gaps. When the country’s largest remaining antigovernment newspaper shuttered last year, its journalists said the government had made it impossible to get enough paper to print. Economic and political pressures have forced many independent outlets to shut down. So the people in Venezuela have no access to the truth, to what’s going on even in their own state.” Reporters Without Borders ranked Venezuela 143rd out of 180 countries in its 2018 World Press Freedom Index. “Everything has been bought by the government and they broadcast whatever the government wants them to broadcast. “There is no true media down there,” she says. People also tune in for access to news that isn’t controlled by Maduro, which María and the moderators read aloud throughout the day. “People will come to our channel and say to us, ‘I desperately need these pills for my mom.’” To protect her identity, WIRED is using only her first name.
As the Latin American country descends further into turmoil, her channel has become an essential lifeline for people in the country where María was born and raised, and where she still has family. Thousands of them come together in Venezuela Hasta Los Tuétanos (Venezuela to the Marrow, or to the Bone), a channel María runs on the popular voice-chat app Zello. The voices are those of Venezuelans, as well as of those among the Venezuelan diaspora, who for years have been engulfed by political and economic crisis under the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro. As she falls asleep next to her husband at night, they’re there. As María makes lunch for her kids and drops them off at their school in Miami, the voices are in her ear. Run, run south right now, someone warns as calmly as they can. This is the latest news from the US, says another. As she dreams, she hears a familiar voice explain where you can still find certain medicines.
One at a time, they speak of chaos, hunger, confusion. Even when María sleeps, she hears the voices.