TikTok banned for a year in Albania due to influence over children

Starting next year, TikTok will be banned for twelve months in Albania.

The ban follows after the killing of a 14-year-old teenager last month. He was stabbed by a fellow pupil his age, most likely because they had an argument on social media. Afterward, teenagers supporting the suspect shared videos on TikTok.

Prime Minister Edi Rama blames social media for fueling violence among teenagers. After a meeting with parents, teachers, and psychologists on Saturday, Rama announced he would ban TikTok to make schools a safer place.

“For one year, we’ll be completely shutting it down for everyone. There will be no TikTok in Albania. The problem today is not our children, the problem today is us, the problem today is our society, the problem today is TikTok and all the others that are taking our children hostage,” he said, according to Reuters.

TikTok is shocked by the strong reaction of Albania’s prime minister.

“We found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have, in fact, confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok,” a company spokesperson said.

TikTok has been under scrutiny for some time now. Several European countries, including France, Germany, and Belgium, have imposed restrictions on social media use for young users. The Netherlands is considering imposing a minimum age of 15 years for the use of social media.

Last month, Australia passed a bill to ban the use of social media under the age of 16. The bill also requires social media companies to take ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure age-verification protections are in place. Violations could result in fines of up to $32 million.

TikTok faces a total ban in the United States if parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell the app before January 19, 2025. Many politicians consider TikTok a threat to national security, because personal data of US citizens could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. Allegedly, the Chinese government is strongly involved in the company and could therefore manipulate information on the platform, intelligence agencies say.

On January 10th, 2025, the US Supreme Court will decide on TikTok’s fate.

“We believe the court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights,” TikTok said in a statement.