Nicolás Maduro on television. Photo: Alba Ciudad.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called on mothers, fathers, and teachers to address the use of TikTok by children after a girl and a boy died from the “clonazepam challenge.” The president held the social media company responsible for the dissemination of these challenges, which have already caused deaths and serious injuries in young people in other Latin American countries since 2022.
Clonazepam is an anxiolytic that should only be administered if prescribed by a doctor and is used alone or in combination with other medications to control certain types of seizures and panic attacks. Since 2022, several children have died or been seriously affected in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Peru for participating in viral “challenges,” stimulated by social media, in which children ingest the medication and whoever falls asleep last “wins.”
Last year, a Peruvian girl, a fifth-grade student, was declared brain dead and later confirmed dead after participating in the controversial challenge. In Mexico, as of May 2023, 45 people have been affected by consuming clonazepam. In 2022 alone, the Cyber Police of Mexico City identified around 500 incidents arising from internet challenges. In Colombia, 10 young people were poisoned last June for participating in a challenge related to clonazepam.
In Venezuela, the Minister of Education, Héctor Rodríguez, asked to investigate the death of two young people for participating in challenges on social media networks.
Journalist Román Camacho reported that one of the deceased, aged 12, was participating in the aforementioned viral challenge, using clonazepam with other classmates. Upon consuming the pill, she experienced convulsions. She was transferred from her home in Turumo, in the Sucre municipality, to the Ana Francisca Pérez de León hospital in Petare, where she died.
Before dying, the young woman indicated that she had taken this medication with some friends from school with whom she spoke via video call as part of a challenge in which the first one to fall asleep lost. “We cannot forget that our teenagers are highly vulnerable to this type of provocation, and that social networks appear to reward scandalous behavior, which limits the possibility of reflective thinking and analysis of the consequences,” said Rodríguez.
“TikTok Latin America is responsible”
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, spoke about these events with the journalist Clodovaldo Hernández during the program Con Maduro+ this Monday.
The president ordered Jorge Márquez, president of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel) to contact TikTok Latin America in Mexico and provide them 72 hours to remove this type of content. Otherwise, “Venezuela, in defense of its children and the right to life, will take the most severe measures against the social network TikTok,” explained the head of state.
“To the head of TikTok Latin America, who lives in Mexico, I say, ‘the death of these children falls on you, because it is you who are doing this… I sent someone to find out what the name of the head of TikTok Latin America is, to show his face, so that he is known to the world,” said the Venezuelan president, who described these executives as “psychopaths [who] hate humanity.”
The president expressed his pain and indignation at the recent tragedies related to viral challenges. He expressed his solidarity with the families recently affected by the viral challenges.
The president also recounted a personal experience in which he was censored by TikTok after broadcasting a live event. “I was censored for a month, my account was closed for a month—and for presenting images that were dangerous to public health. Double standards, hypocrisy, lies, that is the world we have.”
The president reaffirmed his commitment to the protection of Venezuelan children. “Do not doubt for a second that I do not hesitate to take more severe measures against these TikTok criminals,” he concluded.
“Chroming”
Last week, the Minister of Interior and Justice Diosdado Cabello explained that the ministry is investigating cases of “chroming,” another challenge popularized on social networks, especially among teenagers, which consists of inhaling toxic substances from aerosols, deodorants, paints, and insecticides.
On November 5, the first mass poisoning in Venezuela was detected, affecting 94 people in a school in Barinas, where, according to the state channel VTV, a 14-year-old student opened a bottle containing “a pink liquid substance” that “is being analyzed.”
Three days later, the authorities recorded 85 poisonings in a school in Portuguesa, due to a “supposed unidentified chemical substance.” The cases are being investigated by the Scientific, Penal, and Criminal Investigations Corps.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/KW/SL
