Albania Will Close TikTok for One Year, Saying It Encourages Violence Among Children

The Associated Press reports that in Albania (population: 2,402,113), 'children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.'

But 'Albania's prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children' after 'the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok.'

There has been increasing concern from Albanian parents after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok. TikTok's operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, 'promoting how to better study, how to preserve nature... and so on,' according to Rama. Albania is too small a country to impose on TikTok a change of its algorithm so that it does not promote 'the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on,' 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.'

TikTok told the Associated Press it 'found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok....'

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