140 characters in search of Caracas

Francisco Toro writes on his blog on the New York Times site that 600 squatter communities in the Venezuelan capital have joined a non-profit called Radar de los Barrios, which uses Twitter to help neighboring communities communicate. “Working-class settlements here don’t communicate much with one another,” the group’s director, Jesus Torrealba, said. Community activists often have little insight into what is happening in the next barrio just a few miles away. Twitter cuts through this isolation, helping create a network among independently minded activists who contest the government’s policies.

Toro, who identifies himself as "opposition-leaning-but-not-insane" also blogs at Caracas Chronicles, and has written that "one of the more difficult things about my job is communicating to a First World audience that unmistakable taste of sheer thuggishness the Chávez government leaves in your mouth."