Several hundred demonstrators called by the opposition of center-right gathered on Saturday March 15 in the evening in Tirana to protest against the prohibition of Tiktok announced by the Albanian Prime Minister, EDI Rama, whom they see as censorship a few weeks before the legislative elections.
“It is not only Tiktok who is threatened with being censored, the closure of this platform violates the freedom of expression above all a few months before the legislative elections of May 11”launched demonstrators Elida Rançi, a medical student.
Albanian authorities ordered all Internet access providers on Wednesday to block access to Tiktok on the territory by Thursday, March 13, according to a press release from the Authority for Electronic and Postal Communications.
Suppliers must block “All Tiktok’s IP addresses, Tiktok’s DNS servers, the Name Indications (SNI) server (SNI) of Tiktok as well as the IP of the company bytedance”the Chinese parent company of the application to more than a billion users, according to the document published in the Albanian press and authenticated by the authorities.
But in fact, it was still possible to access the platform on Saturday afternoon, noted the Agency France-Presse (AFP).
Edi Rama had announced in December 2024 the ban by Tiktok, the day after the death of a 14 -year -old student during a brawl near a tirana school after a conflict on social networks.
The application, which has built its success on short and often playful videos, is also frequently accused of various ailments ranging from the undue collection of data to the facilitation of electoral manipulations.