STORY: Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro issued a 10-day ban on social media platform X in the country on Thursday, saying it had been used to incite violence following the country's presidential election.
This comes after the country's electoral authority proclaimed Maduro winner of the July 28 presidential election - although it has yet to produce tallies proving he'd won what they say was 51% of the vote.
He earlier criticized platform owner Elon Musk on state TV:
"Elon Musk is the owner of X and has violated all the rules of the social network Twitter itself, today known as X. He has violated the rules by inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, confrontation of Venezuelans, and has violated all Venezuelan laws."
The quarrel between Maduro and Musk has grown since the vote.
Maduro blames the owner of X for being the driving force behind post-election protests and dissent.
While Musk has compared the Venezuelan president to a donkey.
And both of them have offered and accepted challenges to fight each other in comments on X and on Venezuelan state television.
The ban is another big swipe at Big Tech from Maduro this week after he urged supporters to ditch WhatsApp in favor of Telegram or WeChat.
He claimed WhatsApp was being used to threaten the families of soldiers and police officers.
Meanwhile on Thursday, foreign ministers of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia repeated their calls for Venezuela's electoral body to release polling records for last month's disputed election.
The U.S., Argentina and Chile have refused to recognize Maduro's claimed victory.
