Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced on Saturday that the social network TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, would be closed in the country for at least a year, from the beginning of 2025.
“TikTok is the neighborhood thug,” Edi Rama said during a meeting in Tirana with Albanian teachers, parents and psychologists. “We are going to chase this thug out of our neighborhood for a year,” he added. Alongside the closure of TikTok, the Albanian government will launch programs that “will serve the education of students and help parents follow the path of their children,” said the Prime Minister.
The announcement of the suspension of the controversial social network comes less than a month after a 14-year-old student was killed and another injured in a brawl near a school in Tirana, following a conflict over social networks.
“We only see dirt and mud”
Following this tragedy, a debate began in the country between parents, psychologists and schools about the impact of social networks on young people. “In China, TikTok presents how students can take classes, how to protect nature, how to preserve traditions, but on TikTok outside China we only see dirt and mud. Why do we need this?” lamented Mr. Rama.
The TikTok application, which has more than a billion active users worldwide, is particularly popular with young people, attracted by its ultra-short video formats which scroll continuously.
The application surpasses all its competitors in its ability to capture attention. By 2024, Android users used it for an average of 34 hours each month, according to a report from We Are Social. But this dazzling success comes with criticism. Its detractors accuse TikTok of confining its users to content silos, via an opaque algorithm, and of promoting the dissemination of disinformation and illegal, violent or obscene content, particularly among young people.
The social network is accumulating controversies around the world, from its ban for adolescents in Australia to accusations of espionage in the United States, including the European Union where an investigation has just been opened after suspicions of foreign interference in the canceled presidential election in Romania. TikTok has been banned since 2020 in India, after deadly clashes on the border with China.
