With the end of the one-year ban, Albanian authorities declare that they continue to cooperate with TikTok to establish "appropriate filters" in order to strengthen the protection of minor users of the video platform.
When the Albanian government imposed a year-long ban on TikTok, following the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy following a series of social media debates, it promised to use the time to work with the platform to strengthen child protection.
Last week, the ban expired, but there has been no noticeable change in the app, according to the experience of Albanian children.
“Today, Albanian authorities are working in partnership with TikTok representatives on protective filters through keywords, content control, and more effective modalities for reporting and handling violations,” the government said on February 4.
This was repeated a day later during a hearing at the Constitutional Court regarding a legal challenge to the ban on the use of TikTok, filed by BIRN Albania and the Association of Journalists of Albania, AGSH.
A government representative said at the hearing that an agreement had been reached on "appropriate filters" that would ban the use of certain words and phrases and that TikTok would "publicly express this commitment" at an event in February.
But when asked if there was a written agreement, the representative replied: “Legally… at the moment we have no such intention. But they have committed to putting in place the appropriate filters.”
The court has rejected a government request to dismiss the case now that the ban has expired, citing the "high public interest" in continuing.
In a press release, AGSH said the government was relying on promises from TikTok and not on legally binding instruments.
"Also, the question of what measures would be taken if the filters did not work remained unanswered, leaving open the possibility of another closure in the future," the statement said.
The ban was widely violated.
The TikTok ban was widely circumvented thanks to the use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allowed Albanian users to virtually "relocate" to other countries and continue to use TikTok freely.
Within hours of the ban coming into effect, one of the companies providing VPN services in Albania said that usage had increased significantly.
“#ProtonVPN usage has increased by 1,200% over baseline and this figure continues to grow as Albanians demand access to an open and free internet,” Proton VPN wrote on X on March 13 of last year.
The ban was even ignored by some government officials: Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj, for example, remained active on TikTok from prison after his arrest on corruption charges.
Asked by Politico in December last year whether the ban had been effective, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama insisted that there had been benefits.
"It has been effective in building this relationship with TikTok and putting in place some safeguards that didn't exist before," he said.
However, Orkidea Xhaferraj, an expert at the Center for Science and Innovation for Development, said there was "no evidence regarding the effectiveness" of the ban.
The entire process lacked transparency, Xhaferraj told BIRN.
“The decision to close access to TikTok was made after the government announced consultations with parents and teachers, who expressed their support for closing access,” she said. “The documentation of this consultation has not been made public.”
Politics lacks "coherence"
While some European Union countries are considering following Australia's example to restrict social networks to those under 16, the ban in Albania applied to all users, "not just children," Xhaferraj noted.
It also followed efforts by the Audiovisual Media Authority of Albania, AMA, to cooperate with TikTok on this issue — efforts that the government had previously described as successful.
“The entire chain of government actions has clearly shown a lack of coherence in the approach to regulating the activity of digital platforms,” said Daniel Prroni, a digital rights researcher based in Tirana.
“The interventions have been fragmented, often contradictory and disconnected from previous efforts to align with the EU Digital Services Act, which aims precisely to address concerns about harmful content in a systematic and proportionate manner.”
"It was announced that work is being done on security filters within the framework of a voluntary agreement," Prroni said, while the government itself is trying to harmonize legal regulations with the Digital Services Act, "which means that content moderation rules will be a legal obligation and not a voluntary commitment for all digital platforms." /BIRN/
