TikTok, the neighborhood street urchin

By Lutfi Dervishi

After 11 years in government, the Prime Minister has finally identified the source of all the problems: TikTok! This is the neighborhood bully who has taken the young generation by storm, leading them down a bad path.

This digital thug makes children forget that there is no heat in the classroom, that the textbooks are as old as old age itself.

But with a proposal from below and approval from above, TikTok will be banned for a year, and thus Albania will be saved from this virtual thug that the government has taken more seriously than corruption, unemployment, emigration, or poverty. It has even taken it more seriously than SPAK itself.

The “neighborhood streetwalker” has now become the ideal enemy. When a teenager fights with his friend at school or outside, TikTok is to blame. When we come last in the PISA rankings - it is the digital streetwalker's fault. When taxes increase, when citizens flee the country en masse and when the roads remain unpaved for 10 years, the saboteur is no longer geology, but TikTok.

But what will happen to the neighborhood when the street urchin leaves for a year of re-education? Will the students return to books, to reading Migjen's works?

Is there a guarantee that after we banish the street urchin from the neighborhood, young people will not associate with other “street urchins” such as: Instagram, Snapchat, Xi, or online media where the government is not cool? Will we start another consultation to block the next street urchin? After all, the child is a genius and will find a way to challenge. What if, far from it, they use VPN and continue their friendship with the street urchin? The forbidden fruit tastes better, doesn't it?

But is the street person the problem?

Does the problem of waste of public funds being solved by arresting the street vendor? Does the problem of environmental pollution or terrible traffic solve the problem?

What if instead of the virtual thug, we took the thugs who award public tenders as if they were Elbasan bullies more seriously?

Maybe the prime minister is right: TikTok is the neighborhood bully. But there are plenty of bullies in the virtual world. Can he take action against everyone?

And if the street urchin goes away for a year, will we deal with the real problems of the neighborhood?

Or will we invent another scam to pass on the next bills? For example, why not shut down Netflix because Albanians are wasting precious hours instead of watching the successes of the reforms on government television.

TikTok's problems are not exclusive to it. And the solution is not easy, it is not with one fell swoop...

Ultimately, in a neighborhood with many problems, perhaps the street vendor is not the problem, but a reflection of the chaos we have entered and that we ourselves have created.