TikTok is banned in Albania from January 2025, 19 until the end of the year. It could be banned in America as early as January XNUMX, the day before the inauguration of the new president, unless the Supreme Court accepts Donald Trump's request and suspends the law which allows for the ban, writes RTS.
In Albania, a TikTok feud went too far when a boy died. In response to peer violence, authorities in Tirana banned the social network for a year.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said that banning this social network was not a hasty decision, and that since November, when this incident occurred, 1.300 meetings with teachers and parents have been held.
The ban was not without controversy.
"The reactions were both positive and negative. The negatives came mostly from the opposition, the Democratic Party of Albania, which believes that it had a big growth on TikTok and that their followers are there. Prime Minister (Edi) Rama also uses TikTok, and that decision is seen as a showdown with the opposition and freedom of speech, given that elections will be held in a few months," says journalist Idro Seferi.
Abuses and elections
Political scientists do not rule out abuse either, recalling the case in Romania when the first round of presidential elections was annulled, due to the assumption that a large difference in the result in favor of one candidate was achieved thanks to TikTok.
"From a marketing perspective, expecting to make a big profit margin is overkill." It is possible to imagine that this may be one of the moves of the Albanian authorities, which have to do with the fear that TikTok can threaten the ruling party in Albania," emphasizes strategic communications expert Đorđe Trikoš.
Ban announced in the USA
TikTok is now closer to being banned in the United States after the company's appeal against a law requiring the popular app to separate from its Chinese parent company by January 19 was rejected in early December.
The potential ban could strain US-China relations as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on January 20.
Judging by Donald Trump's new decision, TikTok is not a threat, so he is asking the Supreme Court to delay the implementation of a law that would ban or force it to sell.
"It turns out that one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party, Jeff Yass, is a big investor in TikTok. It is true that the Communist Party has a serious stake in TikTok's business, as it has representatives on the board of directors of TikTok's parent company, Byte Dance. Political influence cannot be ruled out," Trikoš believes.
According to him, it is not impossible that the political influence of the Communist Party is serious, so Trump's move can be interpreted as a kind of implicit negotiations with China.
Where everything is forbidden this network
According to earlier reports by Radio Free Europe (RSE), TikTok has been banned in several countries, while in others it has been banned from government-issued devices for use by officials, due to concerns that the app poses a privacy and cybersecurity risk.
For example, it is banned outright in Afghanistan, and in Australia it is not allowed on devices issued by the Australian federal government and in Canada as well.
Interestingly, this social network has never been available in mainland China, which its CEO, Zhou Chu, mentioned in his testimony in the US Congress. For example, it stopped working in Hong Kong after China's strict national security law came into effect.
Also, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union have banned TikTok from staff devices, and MEPs and EP staff have been advised to remove it from their personal devices as well.
TikTok is also banned in many other countries.
Why?
Calls to ban TikTok on government devices gained momentum after FBI Director Christopher Wray said in November that it posed a national security risk, Al Jazeera reported.
Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee in March that the Chinese government could use TikTok to control software on millions of devices and push narratives to divide Americans over Taiwan or other issues.
The app first came under fire in 2020, during the Donald Trump administration, which tried to ban the short video app from US app stores and cut it off from vital tech services.
Source: RTS/RSE/Al Jazeera
