Albania will ban TikTok after a teenager was stabbed to death at the end of the school day following a social media feud.
Prime Minister Edi Rama has announced that the government will shut down TikTok for 12 months from January, accusing the social media platform of inciting violence and bullying, especially among children.
‘We will completely close it off to everyone for a year. There will be no TikTok in Albania,” he said on Saturday after meeting with parent groups and teachers.
The major crackdown, the first of its kind in Europe, was prompted by the death of a 14-year-old boy who was stabbed by another student in November.
Authorities have had 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents since the stabbing, which occurred after an argument that started on social media apps.
The schoolboy was stabbed in the heart and died in hospital an hour later, according to media reports. The fight was filmed by some TikTok users and celebrated online.
It has not yet been determined whether the argument started on TikTok. But Mr Rama said the app is to blame, describing it as “the thug of the neighbourhood”.
“Today’s problem is not our children, today’s problem is us, today’s problem is our society, today’s problem is TokTok and all others who are holding our children hostage,” Mr Rama said.
Prime Minister Edi Rama (pictured) has announced that the government will close TikTok for 12 months from January
The major crackdown, the first of its kind in Europe, was prompted by the death of a 14-year-old boy who was stabbed by another student in November. Pictured: a TikTok logo on the Albanian flag
Following Tirana’s decision, TikTok asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” in the case of the stabbed teenager.
The China-based company said it found “no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed that videos leading to this incident were posted on another platform, not TikTok.”
But Mr Rama defended the measure, saying: ‘The one-year ban on TikTok in Albania is not a knee-jerk reaction to a single incident, but a carefully considered decision made in consultation with parent communities in schools across the country.’
He added: ‘To claim that the murder of the teenage boy is not related to TikTok because the conflict did not originate on the platform shows that we have failed to recognize both the seriousness of the threat that TikTok poses to children and young people today as the rationale behind it. our decision to take responsibility for addressing this threat.”
“Albania may be too small to demand that TikTok protects children and young people from the terrifying pitfalls of its algorithm,” he said, blaming TikTok for “reproducing the endless hell of the language of hate, violence, bullying and so forth.’
Albanian children make up the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.
Many young people in Albania disagreed with the ban.
“We reveal our daily life and enjoy ourselves, that is, we exploit it in our free time,” Samuel Sulmani, an 18-year-old boy from the town of Rreshen, 76 kilometers north of the capital Tirana, said on Sunday.
“We don’t agree with that because it is a hardship for us.”
TikTok has been banned in several countries, including India, Iran, Nepal, Afghanistan and Somalia. (File image)
But Albanian parents are increasingly concerned after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in fights or incidents of bullying, promoted by stories they see on TikTok.
“Our decision could not be clearer: either TikTok protects Albania’s children, or Albania protects its children from TikTok,” Mr Rama said.
TikTok has been banned in several countries, including India, Iran, Nepal, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Australia also recently passed the world’s strictest social media law, banning under-16s from such platforms.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there is a “clear, causal link” between the rise of addictive social media and the damage to “the mental health of young Australians”.
Companies that flout the law, which will take at least a year to come into effect, could face a $50 million fine.
The bill, which was passed on the last day of parliament of the year, will come into force at the end of 2025.
In France, children under the age of 15 are not allowed to access social media unless they have parental permission.
The US wants to ban TikTok unless it is sold by ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, by January 19.
Congress claims the app is linked to the Chinese state, but this is denied by TikTok and ByteDance.