Nicolás Maduro confirmed on Saturday that they had closed his account on TikTok – owned by Chinese company ByteDance – while he was broadcasting, although he did not clarify whether it was a temporary measure, since his profile was active and he had recently uploaded videos.
“We were broadcasting live on TikTok (…) and they monitored our account. They closed my account. What is fear? (…) Do you think that censoring me on social media will stop this city? Maduro said during an event in the state of Anzoategui (northeast of the country): “No one stops this people, not TikTok, not thousands of TikTok.”
On May 21, Maduro proposed creating a new communications system after denouncing censorship and claiming to be “persecuted” and “banned” on social media networks, including that of China's Zhang Yiming, one of the richest men in the world, according to Forbes.
Yet he occupies hours a day in state media, which broadcast his rallies live and on tape, as well as other proselytizing activities focused on the presidential election scheduled for July 28, while the other candidates – all from the opposition – have no space in public media.
On June 26, the National College of Journalists denounced the closure of a total of 405 media outlets in Venezuela over the past two decades, as part of a “state policy” against “freedom of expression and the practice of journalism.”
According to the Inter-American Press Association, Venezuela remains in a “virtually total media blackout,” because in April it said that television channels and radio stations were “silenced.”
With information from EFE