The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, denounced the TikTok platform, which has suspended for one week, until August 19, the live broadcasts of the @NicolasMaduro account on that social network:
“TikTok took me off the air and suspended my ability to broadcast until August 19, for a week. They just suspended me right now in real time and I had this sent to me, TikTok. TikTok, look how immoral TikTok is”, he said during the Meeting of the National Defense Council and the Council of State.
Maduro indicated that the platform accuses him of violating its content rules for broadcasting a video with acts of violence, however, the President argued that the violence shown in the video comes from TikTok’s own live broadcasts, where assaults on hospitals, schools, universities and public squares can be observed, as well as the destruction of statues of important figures for the country:
«They were broadcast live on TikTok and instead of putting a stop to it, not allowing the transmission of violence live, it encouraged them and broadcast them at 100%. All the graphic evidence came from TikTok, with that, all these criminals, drugged, armed and paid by Venezuelan fascism, were found, identified, captured and are being tried,» he said.
In this sense, he stressed that this action reflects the true intentions of the directors and owners of TikTok, of wanting a civil war in Venezuela and supporting fascism in Latin America and the world. “They are responsible for the arrival of –Javier- Milei and the fascists,” he said.
“(…) They hide behind anonymity and harm countries. And in the world they are promoting fascism. The time has come to denounce them by name and surname. In Venezuela we are going to make laws to protect our country, to defend the right to peace, harmony, tranquility. And laws that I am sure will serve as an example, because the whole humanity wants to get rid of the dictatorship of the technological empire, the dictatorship of the owners of social networks, who impose everything they want,” he stressed.
The Head of State called on society to join the fight against fascism and the manipulation of social networks, highlighting that “they are afraid of Live, of live broadcasts and they will not silence me. You will not silence Venezuela, TikTok bandits, immoral owners of TikTok. And one day humanity will make you pay the full price,» he warned.
President Maduro also referred to the addictive nature of social media, pointing out that TikTok and other platforms attract users with attractive content, but at the same time collect data on their tastes and then bombard them with personalized information:
«Everyone has fun watching videos, soap operas, a thousand cool things. But within the cool things they obtain the secret data of your tastes so that later, look, they can bombard you. And at the political electoral level, they can bombard countries and favor fascist projects in the world,» he explained.