The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, opened the debate with the country’s student movement to regulate the use of social networks in the face of the so-called “criminal challenges” on platforms such as TikTok that have caused the death of several high school students.
“What a pain to hear that a 12-year-old girl died in Petare due to a toxic and criminal social network. A 14-year-old boy in the Valles del Tuy. “Teachers are in intensive care,” lamented the first national leader this Thursday. during a meeting with student leaders of the country from the Miraflores Palace.
“I have opened a debate and I open it with you (…) I want to receive the students’ opinions. What do we do with uncontrollable social networks that are managed from the outside? If it were up to me and I reacted radically, with these issues of the death of these children, I would close them completely, but I don’t want to make that decision without trying to act in another way,” he reflected.
The president asserted that in the United States they have poisoned the minds of young people who have gone out with machine guns and pistols to kill teachers and classmates; Therefore, he urged to prevent “this virus of death from reaching Venezuela.”
Maduro commented that social networks lost “a beautiful opportunity” to entertain, educate, know things or communicate. “Every time they are turning social networks into a more toxic entity and they have an objective, you have seen it now, to poison the minds of boys who unfortunately are vulnerable,” he said.
Conatel contacted TikTok
In the meeting with the students, the head of state reported that the general director of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL), Jorge Márquez, communicated with the head of TikTok for Latin America to whom he “read the primer.”
Likewise, he instructed to act in three directions:
1.- “Regular TikTok and all social networks. And if the light is eaten, act, partially or completely”;
2.- “That from the high schools you [estudiantes] “Do a task of prevention and education so that none of this happens again in any high school or school in the country”;
3.- “Do a special task with mothers, fathers and representatives so that, together with the students, we create awareness about the pernicious nature and detect it in time; and set up a center within the Ministry of Education so that high schools can report when challenges like this arise, you can tell us in time.”
Artificial intelligence
President Maduro also urged the ministers of the Executive train to address the study and management of Artificial Intelligence in Venezuela together with the new board of directors of the Venezuelan Federation of University Students (FVEU).
“Artificial intelligence applied to all areas of human knowledge has already arrived, and we must manage artificial intelligence at the highest level with our strategic allies in the world. With China, with Russia, with India, with Iran. It is an order that I am giving,” he stressed.
