TikTok was fined $10 million by Venezuela’s top court on Monday for viral challenges that officials claim resulted in the deaths of three teenagers due to chemical poisoning.
Judge Tania D’Amelio of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice claimed that the well-known video-sharing app had been careless in not taking “necessary and adequate measures” to prevent the dissemination of content that encouraged the challenges.
China’s ByteDance owns TikTok, which was given eight days to pay the fine or face “appropriate” measures. The company was also required to build an office in the South American nation.
Venezuela would use the money to “create a TikTok victims fund, intended to compensate for the psychological, emotional and physical damages to users, especially if these users are children and adolescents,” D’Amelio said.
“Understands the seriousness of the matter,” the corporation told the court, she said.
Authorities in Venezuela claim that 200 students were drunk and three teenagers died in schools throughout the nation after consuming chemicals as part of “challenges” on social media.
The success of TikTok’s challenges, which ask users to make videos with dances, jokes, or games that occasionally become viral, has contributed to the platform’s enormous worldwide success.
The app has been charged with endangering users by disseminating risky challenge videos.
TikTok’s official policy prohibits videos promoting self-harm and suicide.
In November, President Nicolas Maduro threatened “severe measures” against TikTok if it did not remove content related to what he called “criminal challenges.”
Parliament is considering laws regulating social networks, which Maduro said after his disputed reelection in July was being used to promote “hate,” “fascism” and “division.”
He has accused Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of social media platform X, of orchestrating “attacks against Venezuela.”
