Balkan country Albania wants to block access to video platform TikTok for a year. Prime Minister Edi Rama announced this. After proper technical preparations, the platform will no longer be accessible in Albania in six to eight weeks, Rama said in the capital Tirana. This portal, which is successful with short videos, is of China based ByteDance company.
Advertisement
Debate about digital police powers after the Magdeburg attack
The content TikTok offers in China is completely different from the content it distributes outside China. “There is only dirt and feces there,” state news agency ATA quoted Ram as saying. Children and youth in particular will be put in danger and “held hostage”.
Debate on TikTok ends fatally!
The stabbing death of a 14-year-old student about a month ago sparked discussion in Albania about the potentially harmful effects of TikTok. The two groups of youth involved were rivals on TikTok and had planned a fight which turned fatal.
How the TikTok block would be enforced in Albania initially remained unclear. Moreover, such restrictions always have loopholes: in countries where certain content is blocked, users often resort to protected network connections (VPNs) to bypass such blocks. VPN tunnels can make it appear as if the user is in another country.
read this also
Sweden: Recruitment of young criminals on TikTok?
Sweden is also considering banning TikTok to protect youth from violence. The northern European country now has the highest number of deadly shootings per capita, according to Reuters. According to Swedish police, organized crime on social media sometimes recruits teenagers for murders and bomb attacks. In the first seven months of 2024, 93 youth under the age of 15 in Sweden were suspected of being involved in planning a murder.
Australia became the first country in the world to ban children from social media. In late November, the Australian Parliament made an immediate decision to ban social media for everyone under the age of 16. Tech companies, but also child protection and human rights organizations criticized the move.
There is also a possibility of political influence
The European Union Commission has initiated proceedings against TikTok following complaints from Romania. Doubt: Influencing the Presidential Election. Georgescu, a right-wing extremist presidential candidate, was not recognized as a politician illegally.
In the US, Chinese company ByteDance has threatened to impose a complete ban on TikTok if it does not sell the platform. Allegation: The risk of Chinese influence on American citizens through video services is very high.
(No)
Problems with open source video conferencing tools: Hesse is introducing WebEx at short notice
