The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, called on students to join the debate on the negative impact of social networks, after the deaths and poisonings due to viral challenges recorded in recent days in the country, and to make a decision to deal with the situation.
He asked young people to participate and, with their contributions: «From now until Monday, or beyond Monday, help me make a decision» on whether to regulate all social networks or promote prevention campaigns in high schools.
This was announced from the Miraores Palace in Caracas, at an event for Venezuelan Student Day and the closing of the Congresses of the Venezuelan Federation of Secondary Education Students (Feveem) and the Venezuelan Federation of University Students (FVEU).
“We must act in several directions. One, regulate all social networks and if they are blind, act partially or completely, first option. Second option, that from the high schools you do a task of prevention and education so that nothing happens again in any high school and school in the country, awareness, and three, Mr. Minister and Vice President Héctor Rodríguez, do a special task with mothers, fathers and representatives so that together with the students, we create awareness about the pernicious nature and detect in time, and set up a center within the Ministry of Education so that from the high schools they report to us when challenges like this arise, you tell us in time, ‘look what is coming out, tell such and such…’ and we act quickly in a control task,” he specified.
“I want to receive the opinion of the students. What do we do with uncontrollable social networks that are managed from outside? Right? What do we do? I leave it to you, if it were up to me and they react radically, with these issues of the death of these children, I would completely close them in their access to Venezuela, but I do not want to reach that decision without trying to act in another way,” he stressed, and added: “I will do what the student movement orders me to do.”
In addition, he reported that the president of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), Jorge Márquez, communicated with the head of TikTok for Latin America “and did the briefing, and they are acting.”
Maduro explained that it is not known who runs them and from where; they are “capable of putting so much poison” and they are increasingly turning social networks into a toxic entity, whose objective is “to poison the minds of children who are unfortunately vulnerable,” so “it must be prevented this virus of death to reach Venezuela.”
Earlier, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) admitted an appeal against TikTok’s viral challenges in Venezuela, filed by the Bolivarian Movement of Families «Aristóbulo Istúriz.»
On November 18, President Maduro instructed Conatel to communicate with TikTok’s representatives for the region in its offices in Mexico, so that, within 72 hours, they remove the viral content that spreads and puts people at risk.
Due to the so-called viral challenges of this platform, at least two deaths of young people and disturbances in others who inhaled toxic gases in educational centers in states such as Portuguesa and Miranda have been recorded.