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Albania to close TikTok for a year due to violence and intimidation

Albania to close TikTok for a year due to violence and intimidation

By Llazar Semini | Associated Press

TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s prime minister said Saturday the government would shut down video service TikTok for a year, accusing it of inciting violence and harassment, particularly among children.

Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents after a teenager was killed by another teenager in mid-November following an argument started on TikTok.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be completely closed to everyone. …There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania. Rama said the closure would begin next year.

It was not immediately clear whether TikTok had a contact in Albania.

TikTok, in an emailed response Saturday to a request for comment, asked for “urgent clarification from the Albanian government” on the stabbing teen’s case. The company said it “found no evidence that either the perpetrator or the victim owned TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have actually confirmed that the videos leading up to this incident were posted on another platform, not on TikTok.”

Albanian children make up the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.

Albanian parents are increasingly concerned about reports that children are taking knives and other items to school to use in quarrels or bullying cases fueled by stories they see on TikTok .

TikTok’s operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, “promoting how to study better, how to preserve nature… and so on,” according to Rama.

Albania is too small a country to force TikTok to change its algorithm so that it does not favor “the reproduction of endless hell of the language of hatred, violence, intimidation, etc..” ” Rama’s office wrote in an email response to The Associated Press’ request for comment. Rama’s office said that in China, TikTok “prevents children from being sucked into this abyss.”