TIRANA (Reuters) – Albania on Saturday introduced a one-year ban on TikTok, the favored brief video app, following the killing of a youngster final month that raised fears over the affect of social media on youngsters.
The ban, a part of a broader plan to make faculties safer, will come into impact early subsequent yr, Prime Minister Edi Rama mentioned after assembly with dad and mom’ teams and academics from throughout the nation.
“For one yr, we’ll be utterly shutting it down for everybody. There will likely be no TikTok in Albania,” Rama mentioned.
TikTok didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark exterior regular enterprise hours.
A number of European nations together with France, Germany and Belgium have enforced restrictions on social media use for kids. In one of many world’s hardest laws concentrating on Large Tech, Australia authorized in November an entire social media ban for kids underneath 16.
Rama has blamed social media, and TikTok particularly, for fuelling violence amongst youth in and outdoors college.
His authorities’s determination comes after a 14-year-old schoolboy was stabbed to dying in November by a fellow pupil. Native media had reported that the incident adopted arguments between the 2 boys on social media. Movies had additionally emerged on TikTok of minors supporting the killing.
“The issue at the moment will not be our youngsters, the issue at the moment is us, the issue at the moment is our society, the issue at the moment is TikTok and all of the others which can be taking our youngsters hostage,” Rama mentioned.
