CARACAS — After imposing his socialist "revolution" on national radio and television, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is now intent on spreading his ideology worldwide through the blogosphere.

Chavez informed his South American nation, via his weekly televised talk show "Alo Presidente", that he would be blogging to counter online detractors whom he accused of disseminating lies about his government on their own web pages and Twitter accounts.

"Maybe I'll reach millions, not only in Venezuela but in the world," Chavez said.

"I am going to dig my own trench on the Internet," he said, adding that the amount of information he intended to send out of the web would be a "bombardment" against his critics.

If and when the presidential blog is set up, it will add to the near-daily communications Chavez already makes over the airwaves and in print to his country of 27 million people.

The announcement deepened the unease of critics, who are concerned that Chavez's recent moves to close opposition radio and television stations could broaden to an attempt to crack down on anti-Chavez posts on the Internet.

"Everything on the Internet irritates the regime and makes President Chavez very nervous," the president of the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, told a conference of the Inter-American Press Society on the Caribbean island of Aruba.

"The president is afraid because up to now he has not been able to extend his communication hegemony into cyberspace," said an opposition lawmaker in the Justice First party, Yon Goicoechea.

Chavez, though, portrayed his blogging foray as a struggle between two economic models.

"All this is a battle between socialism and capitalism," he said.

"Our Internet -- the Bolivarian Internet -- has to be an alternative press," he said.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.