The "Tik Tok" Case: Whoever loses their house keys tries to lock everything

Alfred Lela

Closing a mass communication platform on the pretext that it endangers students' lives is an absurd government measure that seeks a solution where there is none. The decision announced by Prime Minister Rama, apparently after the murder of 14-year-old Martin Cani by a peer, not only does not address the essence of the problem but opens a new one. It creates a censorship system that seeks to regulate ​​mass communication through punitive and prohibitive measures, violating one of the fundamental freedoms of man: expression.

If the Cani case had truly been the impetus for this authoritarian, punitive measure, Mr. Rama would have had several alternatives before moving to a total ban on the TikTok platform.

First, it could ban all social networks in the country's elementary and secondary school systems.

Second, like Australia, it could ban TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram for users under 16.

Any of these measures would be more appropriate and would address the problem that prompted the ban on TikTok; namely, it would remove a 'cold weapon' of verbal and visual conflict from school students, which could later turn physical.

The fact that Rama has not chosen a partial but a general ban makes the measure a political windfall and electoral calculation.

For several reasons.

First, TikTok is the platform with the most democratic algorithm among existing social networks. This allows for a broader and more intensive reach of the material posted there and, consequently, greater visibility and impact.

Secondly, unlike Facebook, a platform that has demonstrated an apparent willingness to cooperate with various governments, including the Albanian one, TikTok has been more open, less influenced, and more resistant to the imposition of controlling algorithms.

As such, TikTok has produced a third effect, quickly becoming a preferred image and message-sharing platform.

Regarding the Albanian context, with Rama on board, TikTok has become a platform for spreading critical messages about the government. In an election year, such an uncontrolled means of mass communication is not welcome. So, Rama used the pretext of the murder of a 14-year-old boy to install an undemocratic and censorious measure against critics or political opponents.

This is not the first time the Prime Minister has made such inroads. For several years, he had been pushing for a so-called defamation bill, essentially nothing more than an attempt to limit or block new media outlets - portals - that he could not control.

The TikTok battle is just an attempt to limit communication platforms or media he does not control.

Rama's claim is not only hypocritical but also grotesque. Blaming TikTok for the entire brawl that led to the physical confrontation and stabbing death of a peer by an adolescent is like saying you saw a movie on the radio. TikTok is not a text-based exchange platform; its dominance is in videos or images and their distribution, so it is not a text-based platform like Facebook or messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Snapchat. This means TikTok has not been a platform where adolescents are grinders, which is also confirmed by the company itself, which denied Prime Minister Rama, saying that the students in question were not active on TikTok.

Knowing this, Rama is left with the authoritarian and dishonest attempt to limit the communication of critics and political opponents.