Firewalls for Hacking the Self 

Our brain is in dispute; it has become a space of military conquest and technology wants to hack it. It is not only about seducing us until we believe in an idea that has been inoculated -as propaganda has always tried to do- but also about segmenting and polarizing us, to the point that there is no longer a single truth, but several alternatives: everyone can choose the one that does not conflict with his or her way of thinking.
It may seem like a dystopian scenario, like George Orwell's 1984, but it portrays the reality of today's world: digital networks have changed social relations, power, production, consumption...; and from their communicative hegemony they establish, validate and reproduce a state of surveillance, manipulation and behavioral transformation accepted by almost everyone.
It is not even a question of being given these instruments of control, but rather we are going, enthusiastically, to acquire the latest model, the one that has the greatest capacity to subdue us, reflected Freddy Ñáñez, Minister of People's Power for Information and Communication in Venezuela, at the Colloquium Patria.
In the conference From Propaganda to Cognitive Warfare: Strategies of Resistance and Construction of Informative Autonomy, Ñáñez, together with a work team, referred to the ultra-liberal narrative, promoted by technocapitalism, which prevails in social networks: the myth of the super-powerful being who, if he/she sets his/her mind to it, triumphs.
The deconstruction of reality is sometimes done with something as simple as a joke in a reel, which ends up being enthroned.
In the case of Venezuela, they exemplified, the narratives of the failed State have been established, of the need to protect that justifies humanitarian intervention and, even, attacks; as well as the induction of migration and, later, the criminalization of immigrants.
In this scenario, the Minister explained, it is essential to have the pedagogical capacity to go to the community and offer a political response: to create affective and social networks capable of overcoming the virtualization of life.
Face-to-face communication as a political act, the street as a stage for symbolic and cultural confrontation, the tactical use of digital tools to viralize the truth, literacy in security and digital rights, cyberactivism and digital militancy, are some of the guidelines that the Bolivarian Project has defended, along with the promotion of community and alternative media, mural painting and graffiti, and the spreading of information by word of mouth, among others.