President Nicolas Maduro has urged Venezuelans to stop using the messaging app WhatsApp and he himself uninstalled the program from his smartphone in front of television cameras. “I am going to break off relations with WhatsApp because they are using it to threaten Venezuela, so I am going to delete WhatsApp from my phone forever, goodbye WhatsApp!” the president said. He claimed that the app, owned by the company Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, was transmitting all of Venezuelans’ contacts to the extremist opposition so that it could spread threats, fake news and hate messages. He also highlighted alternatives: “I am going to gradually transfer all of my contacts to Telegram and WeChat.”
He said the same thing about the X network, formerly known as Twitter. He denounced that this platform was used to multiply hateful messages and ordered Conatel to block access to it from Venezuela for 10 days. He designated the owner of A UN data survey found that 7 in 10 people believe social media contributes to misinformation and the spread of hate speech.
“Elon Musk has violated all the rules of the social network X itself, inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, confrontation between Venezuelans, violating all the laws of Venezuela.”
WhatsApp and X are among the most used apps in the world. WhatsApp has more than 2 billion monthly active users, according to statista.com. Its closest competitors are WeChat, the most used app in China, with 1,336 million; then Facebook Messenger, the most used messaging app in the United States, with 979 million; and Telegram with 800 million.
For its part, the X network occupies fifth place in global Internet traffic.
In Venezuela, according to the analysis platform statcounter.com, X represents about 10% of active users of social networks.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Social Media Market Share
Although it is behind platforms such as Facebook (38%), Instagram (26%), Pinterest (12%) and YouTube (12%), X is known as the social network par excellence for the circulation of information and opinion.
Given this panorama, in UN data We decided to measure with our audience the alternatives to using these platforms. We published a digital survey on our website and social networks and between Monday, August 12 and Thursday, August 15, 709 people participated. These are the results.
Clearly telegram
The first thing we asked was which messaging apps users have installed on their phone, regardless of their usage. We found that 8 out of 10 people have both WhatsApp and Telegram installed on their mobile device. Facebook’s messaging app, called Messenger, is on the phones of 36.7% of our users.
Below we ask which is the most used messaging app. 6 out of 10 users answered that the one they use the most is WhatsApp, while Telegram is the favorite of 3 out of 10 users.
The president, when proposing to eliminate WhatsApp, indicated two alternatives: Telegram and WeChat. When asked directly for the opinion on which is the best option, Telegram clearly stands out with 78% preference. It should be remembered that there have been episodes in the past in which Telegram has gained popularity due to WhatsApp outages or crashes, which has caused an increase in downloads of this application on several occasions. For its part, WeChat is very popular in China, but it is less known on this side of the planet.
For the news too
When it comes to news, X is the go-to platform, political leaders, governments and public figures in general tend to report things this way. And the media is generally very active on this social network. We asked our survey participants how often they use Network X to watch the news.
We find that half (49.5%) use it frequently (every day + sometimes), while the other half say they never use it or almost never. To be more precise, we find that 28% say they use X daily to find out the news. And 28% say they never use it.
At this point, it is necessary to clarify the possible biases of our survey. The survey was distributed among the public of Latest newspeople who have accessed our web portal or have been in contact with our social networks. This means that the group surveyed is mainly made up of an audience that regularly reads the news. We are therefore not talking about proportions in relation to the general public. It is however interesting to note that these responses on the use of applications to watch the news come from an audience that frequently consults news sites, which refines the result.
In this sense, we asked those who responded to our survey which social network they usually use the most to know the news. In distribution, Telegram comes first with 41.9%. This messaging application has had the functionality of broadcast channels for years and many media have developed large user communities. Latest news It is the Venezuelan media with the most subscribers to its Telegram channel, more than 84,700 to date.
Network X comes in second with 16.1% of respondents saying it is the one they use most to watch the news. Instagram took 11%, YouTube 7.8%, Facebook 6.8% and TikTok 3.1%.
The next question was about users’ opinions on what would be the best alternative to X for getting current events.
More than half said Telegram was the best option. 14.1% said they preferred Instagram, 8.7% preferred YouTube, 7.8% said Facebook was better, and 4.1% preferred watching news on TikTok.
These data, although not an exhaustive study and not intended to represent the general population, function as an indicator of the preferences of information audiences in relation to the alternatives that arise in the current situation where social networks are in the public eye.
