According to official letters sent to telecommunications operators by national regulators, TikTok is no longer available in Albania as of today.
The announcement follows a school fight in Tirana that left a 14-year-old dead and another injured.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama didn’t mince words when he announced that the social network owned by the Chinese group ByteDance will be closed in the country for at least a year, starting in the first days of 2025. The announcement was made during a meeting in Tirana with Albanian teachers, parents and psychologists.
“We will drive that thug out of our neighborhood for a year,” the prime minister said.
The announcement of the suspension of the controversial social network comes less than a month after a 14-year-old student was killed and another injured in a clash near a school in Tirana, which erupted after a social media dispute. After this tragedy, a discussion was started in the country among parents, psychologists and school institutions about the influence of social networks on young people.
The TikTok app, which has more than a billion active users worldwide, is particularly popular among young people, attracted by the ultra-short video formats that are continuously shown.
The app outperforms all of its competitors in its ability to hold users’ attention.
In 2024, Android users used it for an average of 34 hours per month, according to a report by We Are Social.
