At the end of the year, the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela has issued an unusual ruling against the social network. It has imposed a fine of 10 million dollars, to create a fund in favor of the “victims of Tiktok”, and has conditioned its operation in Venezuela on opening an office in the country. Magistrate Tania D’Amelio announced this Monday the sanction for the alleged “negligence” of Tiktok “for not having implemented the necessary and appropriate measures” to prevent the publication of dangerous content for minors on the social network. If the fine is not paid into the accounts of the National Telecommunications Commission within the next eight days after the publication of the sentence, a greater penalty will be imposed.
After, after an exchange of hostile messages with Elon Musk in the midst of the crisis due to the disputed results of the presidential elections, the Government of Nicolás Maduro turned against TikTok. Starting in November, after a series of complaints about alleged poisoning among school students encouraged by viral challenges spread on the platform, Chavismo began to launch itself against TikTok, the platform on which it managed to amplify its propaganda in the presidential campaign. The complaints only occurred in Venezuela. The challenge supposedly has the name of chrome and led adolescents to ingest or inhale toxic substances. The authorities reported several cases in different states of Venezuela that involved more than 200 students and left three dead, although there are no known direct testimonies of those affected.
Maduro directly accused “the extreme right” on one occasion and called on Tiktok to eliminate the alleged videos with dangerous challenges. The Minister of the Interior and Justice, charged against social networks, which have been in his sights since he was part of the Chavista Parliament. “This is a problem that must be faced, the issue of social networks, legislation, regulation. They post messages and from there promote the participation of people, in this case young people,” Cabello declared last month, adding that “a time will come” when it will be necessary to “regulate the use of social networks.”
A month ago, the Constitutional Chamber summoned the representatives of , based in Mexico, when admitting an appeal for protection introduced by the Bolivarian Family Movement Aristóbulo Istúriz, which called for the protection of the rights of children and adolescents “in the face of the risks they run due to viral challenges that circulate on social networks.” In her statement, Judge D’Amelio repeated the argument that the alleged viral challenges on TikTok have generated a situation of “social unrest,” for which the company was ordered to open an office in Venezuela to be responsible for compliance with the legal framework of the country.
In the case of The initial block was for 10 days and to this day you cannot enter from Venezuela without a VPN.
Chavismo has increased its censorship in the digital medium this year. At least 107 domains on the internet remain blocked by the Government at the end of 2024; 64 sites belong to independent media, according to the report by Venezuela Sin Filtro, an NGO that defends digital rights in the country. After the July 28 elections, there is a spike in the . The Government also accused WhatsApp of promoting persecution against Chavistas and forced all officials and state entities to abandon their accounts on X and migrate their communications to Telegram. With a reduced media ecosystem, most Venezuelans get their information through social networks, with WhatsApp being one of the main channels. In Venezuela, TikTok has at least 12 million accounts, and is the second most used platform in the country, after Facebook.
