Scrolling through videos on TikTok will be a thing of the past for Albanians in 2025. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced on Saturday that his country will ban TikTok for a year, news agency ANP reported.
“TikTok is the villain of the neighborhood,” Rama said during a meeting with teachers, parents and psychologists in the capital Tirana. “We will close the network for a year and roll out programs that serve the education of students and help parents follow their children’s journey,” he said.
Albania is not the first country to take measures against the Chinese video platform. A total ban is looming in the United States. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance recently went to the US Supreme Court to block a law forcing the sale of their US operations by January 19. If TikTok and Bytedance do not comply with this legal sale, the app will be banned.
In the United States, TikTok is seen as a threat to national security because the app is Chinese-owned. There are also concerns in the Netherlands: last year the House of Representatives decided to ban TikTok on the work phones of government officials due to the risk of espionage.
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