President goes on offensive against online detractors

Far from laughing along with those who poke fun at him on social media, President Rafael Correa has created a website and Twitter account to marshal digital counterattacks by his supporters against the "defamers".

"For every lying tweet that they send out, we will send 10,000 that are truthful," Correa said on Saturday in his weekly TV appearance.

To critics, the campaign is the latest salvo in the war on freedom of expression by a president they see as thin-skinned and whom human rights groups criticize as intolerant.