Albania to ban access to TikTok for one year after schoolboy stabbed to death, as regulators seek child social media protections

Albania is to ban TikTok for a year following the killing of a schoolboy in November that was blamed on the influence of social media, the country’s prime minister has said.

The ban is to begin in January, prime minister Edi Rama said.

TikTok said it is seeking urgent clarifications from Albania on the matter, saying it has found no evidence that either the alleged stabber or the 14-year-old victim had accounts on the platform.

At a meeting with teachers, parents and psychologists in Albanian capital Tirana, Rama said TikTok was the “thug of the neighbourhood”.

‘Scum and mud’

“We are going to close it for a year and we are going to start rolling out programs that will serve the education of students and help parents follow their children’s journey,” he said.

“In China, TikTok promotes how students can take courses, how to protect nature, how to keep traditions, but on the TikTok outside China we see only scum and mud. Why do we need this?” Rama added.

The stabbing at a fight near a school in southern Tirana resulted from a confrontation on social media, according to local media reports.

Authorities have held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents since the stabbing, with 90 percent saying they approved of the ban.

Rama said the ban was “not a rushed reaction to a single incident” but was a “carefully considered decision”.

He said it was irrelevant whether the two young people involved in the killing had accounts on TikTok.

“To claim that the killing of the teenage boy has no connection to TikTok because the conflict didn’t originate on the platform demonstrates a failure to grasp both the seriousness of the threat TikTok poses to children and youth today and the rationale behind our decision to take responsibility for addressing this threat,” he said.

‘Unending hell’

“Albania may be too small to demand that TikTok protect children and youth from the frightening pitfalls of its algorithm,” he said, claiming the platform was responsible for “the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on”.

“Our decision couldn’t be clearer: Either TikTok protects the children of Albania, or Albania will protect its children from TikTok,” Rama said.

European countries including France, Germany and Belgium have enforced restrictions on children’s social media use, while Australia in November passed a law banning youths under 16 from such platforms.

Technology secretary Peter Kyle has said a similar ban is “on the table” for the UK, but that the government is still reviewing evidence.