Albania will block TikTok in the coming days, citing concerns for children’s safety, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday, the 6th of March, reports Politico.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced in late December a one-year ban on the app after a 14-year-old was lethally stabbed in November over a dispute on social media. Following the stabbing, videos appeared on TikTok in which young people expressed their support for the murder.
“We say what we do and we do what we say,” Rama said in a post on X on Thursday, confirming that the ban would now take effect.
He said the decision to block the app was taken after consulting 65 000 parents and teachers, and after exploring technical options.
Opposition representatives have said the ban is an “abuse of power to suppress freedom of expression in Albania” and have expressed concern that due process has not been ensured.
In December, Rama announced that the government would need six to eight weeks to implement the ban.
In the meantime, the government has had “a very positive dialogue with the company”, which will come to Albania to demonstrate a range of child safety measures, including in Albania, the prime minister said.
Earlier, a TikTok spokesperson said that they had found “no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and several reports actually confirmed that the videos that led to these incidents were posted on a platform other than TikTok.”
Children’s online safety is increasingly becoming a central concern for European governments and efforts are being made across the region to restrict minors’ access to social media and devices.