Maduro accuses TikTok of promoting a civil war in Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday accused “the owners” of the social network TikTok – owned by Chinese Zhang Yiming – of promoting a civil war in the country, which is going through a political crisis following the July 28 elections, whose official result, which gave victory to the Chavista leader, is not recognized by a large part of the international community.

“Look how immoral TikTok is. I accuse the directors and owners of TikTok worldwide of wanting civil war in Venezuela, of supporting fascism in Latin America and in the world,” said the president during a meeting with heads of state institutions.

He criticized the platform for suspending its ability to broadcast live, after – he said – showing a statement by the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, on the violence unleashed in the context of the electoral protests, which resulted in 25 deaths and more than 2,400 arrests, according to state sources.

“I want to tell the bandits and immoral people on TikTok that the acts of violence come from you, all those videos are from TikTok,” he replied.

Maduro criticized the fact that on July 29, 30 and 31 – when the largest number of protests against his announced electoral victory were recorded – this social network broadcast live “assaults on hospitals, health centers, schools, public squares, city halls,” incidents for which he holds the main opposition coalition responsible.

The complaint comes days after the head of state said that TikTok and Instagram are “multipliers of hate” in the country.

The National Electoral Council (CNE), which claims to have suffered a cyber attack on election day, has yet to publish disaggregated results confirming Maduro’s victory – contrary to its own rules – a silence that has been questioned by numerous countries.

For its part, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the main anti-Chavez alliance, published on a website “83.5%” of the electoral records that confirm, according to the coalition, that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the presidential election by a wide margin.