The long-serving President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, loves to pick a fight. But his latest foe may be too big even for him: Twitter. 

The social network / micro-blogging service might be Chavez' worst enemy. After three networks refused to air the Presidential address last month, sparks flew when Chavez decided to crack down on the media. 

Chavez' media battle has been escalating for years. In 2007, Venezuelans protested the shutdown of the private opposition radio station RCTV. They did the same in August 2009, after the state closed 32 private stations. Recent legislation concerning "media crimes" does not help Chavez's case.

Tired and frustrated, thousands of Venezuelan citizens, who are supported by global advocates, are gathering in the virtual reality world of online media. 

Facebook's anti-Chavez group, "Chavez esta PONCHAO!" , has more than 233,000 fans. Several Twitter hash tags have popped up: #Venezuela, #Estudiantes, #FreeVenezuela, #FreeMediaVE. Chavez has dubbed Tweets criticizing the government regime as "acts of terrorism."

Should Chavez be concerned about an Iran-like scenario? Absolutely. Several media outlets, both domestic and international, are reporting the president's seething remarks about the growing anti-Chavez Twitter community.

How will Chavez combat the growing citizen's army of bloggers and tweeters? With other bloggers and tweeters! According to Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda, Chavez has assembled an "internet army", an online fifth column. Could government-sponsored tweets daze and confuse the enemy (media outlets and student protestors)? Highly unlikely. 

However, it will be interesting to watch the reactions of 233,000 people as they express their "dislike" for any government infiltrators who join the anti-Chavez group. Ironically, despite his construction of an internet army, Chavez has declared that social media users are "traitors." Traitors to what exactly? UNESCO has joined advocacy groups in condemning Chavez. "There can be no freedom of expression, or even democracy, in the absence of media pluralism," UNESCO Secretary-General Koichiro Matsuura said in a statement. 

The real lesson for totalitarian regimes is that full-scale media crackdowns are a thing of the past. With social media and online rallies, there's no use in shutting down media stations. Twitter is the perfect end-run around traditional media blackouts.

President Chavez has dubbed Twitter a place for terrorists and traitors to conglomerate. Extreme? Maybe not. A white ops homegrown terrorist cell operating on the world wide web? It's a stretch, but Twitter holds those possibilities.

It's time for Chavez to rethink his media strategy. In an era of internet liberalization, state censorship is a dangerous game. Instantaneous communication and social media networks will fight back, and this time, the world is listening.