The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, assured this Monday that the instant messaging application WhatsApp is being used in the country for threaten military and police, as well as community leaders, asking the population to eliminate the platform voluntarily, progressively and radically.
«Through WhatsApp they are threatening the Venezuelan military family, “To all officers, through WhatsApp they are threatening the police family, through WhatsApp they are threatening street leaders, community leaders, through WhatsApp they are threatening anyone who does not speak out in favor of fascism,” said the president at an event with Chavista youth.
Ripe He asked his followers to «voluntary, progressive and radical retirement» of the application, and proposed other alternatives for communicating such as Telegram, EFE cites.
«I am going to break relations with WhatsApp, because WhatsApp is being used to threaten Venezuela, and so I am going to delete my WhatsApp from my phone forever, little by little I will move my contacts to Telegram, to WeChat (…) it is necessary to do it, say no to WhatsApp, out WhatsApp from Venezuela”he added.
Maduro thus adds the messaging app, from the North American company Meta, to the Chinese social network TikTok and the American Instagram, which are, he said on Sunday, the main instruments “that multiply hatred and fascism” in the country.
«The main conscious multiplying instruments of hatred and fascism, and the attempt to divide Venezuelans and create fascist fanatics who attack the police, the military or the Chavista people in their communities, are TikTok and Instagram,” said the president in a televised event.
Maduro indicated that TikTok, owned by Chinese Zhang Yiming – one of the richest men in the world, according to Forbes – and Instagram, also owned by Meta and created by Brazilian Kevin Systrom and American Mike Krieger, have “infected” to important sectors of society with “hate”, of “shameless manner.”
The president said that in Venezuela there is no “no national regulation” on the use of networks, for which reason he requested recommendations from the Defense Council and the Security Council on this issue, after protests broke out following the election results, which according to official data from the National Electoral Council (CNE), were won by Maduro.
