TikTok: Albania issues one-year ban after fatal stabbing
www.bbc.com
PM Edi Rama announced the move after meeting parents and teachers over the effects on young people of social media.

Albania’s prime minister has announced the government intends to block access to TikTok for one year after the killing of a schoolboy last month raised fears about the influence of social media on children.

Speaking on Saturday Edi Rama declared the proposed ban would start in January.

[…]

The blocking of TikTok comes less than a month after the 14-year-old student was killed and another injured in a fight near a school in southern Tirana which had its roots in a confrontation on social media.

The killing sparked a debate in Albania among parents, psychologists and educational institutions about the impact of social networks on young people.

“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 said.

TikTok is already banned in India, which was one of the app’s largest markets before it was outlawed in June 2020. It is also blocked in Iran, Nepal, Afghanistan and Somalia.

TikTok is also fighting against a law passed by the US Congress which would ban the app from 19 January unless it is sold by ByteDance - its Chinese parent

company.

  • lily33@lemm.ee
    131·
    1 day ago

    Now, if only the article explained how that killing was related to TikTok. The only relevant thing I saw was,

    had its roots in a confrontation on social media.

    It’s says “social media”, not “TokTok” though.

    • InevitableList@beehaw.org
      1·
      10 hours ago

      Don’t forget this line;

      The social media platform told the BBC it had found no evidence the person who allegedly stabbed the 14-year-old boy, or the victim himself, had TikTok accounts.

            • InevitableList@beehaw.org
              1·
              2 hours ago

              Everything TikTok is accused of is either just a true for other social media/ website or more so. Thanks to Edward Snowden we know for a fact that US tech companies forward your emails and data to the NSA. There is no evidence of Tiktok sharing any data with any government. Yet it’s tiktok that get’s threatened with bans rather than facebook and gmail.

              Instagram is notorious for making girls feel bad about their appearance and pushing them to anorexia and self harm yet no one’s proposing to ban it.

              • thelucky8@beehaw.org
                2·
                2 hours ago

                Did you even clicked the link? Tiktok appears to be part of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine. With each of your comments you open up just the next round of whataboutism. Tankies are doing tankie things. This is waste of time.

                • InevitableList@beehaw.org
                  1·
                  2 hours ago

                  I commented on your post so yeah I think I managed to click on it. Did you bother to read mine and think of a coherent response before typing? Nah just ignore my efforts to put this in a wider context and dismiss me as a tankie. I’ll just dismiss you as racist since you only complain when it’s a Chinese company doing it.

                  I’m all in favour of robust privacy protections like GDPR. I don’t support yellow peril bullshit when a Chinese company successfully operates in the same space that US companies do.

                  • thelucky8@beehaw.org
                    1·
                    1 hour ago

                    The linked post in my comment says, among others:

                    • All 9 Austrian teenagers between 14 and 17 years of age see radical right-wing propaganda, “free home delivered from China,” as the magazine writes.

                    • The young people see Herbert Kickl, the current leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party, the avatar of Jörg Haider, a former right-wing politician who died in a car accident in 2008, and Alice Weidel, the head of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany - Alternative for Germany).

                    • Russian propaganda arises, too, promoting immigration to Russia: “We offer work, a house, a Russian wife and military training,” promises a mock Vladimir Putin to a 15-year-old teenager from Styria, one of Austria’s nine states. Teenagers must apply only at “einbü[email protected]”.

                    • Donald Trump is doing his ‘Trump Dance’, anti-EU propaganda and pro-Islamic propaganda are as widespread as Quran videos, and, of course, there’s no lack of China’s Xi Jinping.

                    What has that to do with GDPR, Edward Snowden, and the NSA? What you are doing is blatant whataboutism.