Cyberspace and its threats; TikTok blocked in Albania

 

After meeting with a group of parents and teachers from across the country, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the ban as part of a broader plan to make schools safer, which will be implemented from next year. He said: “We are completely closing the app for everyone for a year. TikTok will not operate in Albania.”

Edi Rama blamed social networks, and TikTok in particular, for fueling violence among young people and outside of school. His government’s decision to ban TikTok for a year came after a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death by his classmate in November this year.

According to local media, the incident occurred after an argument between two teenagers on the social network. Minors also posted videos on TikTok supporting the killing. The Albanian Prime Minister said: “Today’s problem is not our children, today’s problem is us, today’s problem is society, TikTok and all the things that are holding our children hostage.”

TikTok, on the other hand, said it was calling for immediate transparency from the Albanian government. A company spokesperson said: “We have found no evidence that the victim or the attacker had an account on TikTok.” Multiple reports on the incident have also confirmed that the videos that led to the incident were posted on another platform and not TikTok.

Several European countries, including France, Germany and Belgium, have imposed restrictions on children’s use of social media. Australia, in one of the world’s strictest laws on technology companies, completely banned social media for those under 16 in November 2024.

Regardless of the fact that Albania’s blocking of TikTok is considered a form of compliance with the policies of the United States, as the main supporter of this country’s political system, the cyberspace platform is a suitable platform for building culture. Easy access and speed of action are advantages of the cyberspace. However, this suitable space can create many threats to societies. ISIS terrorists’ use of the X platform (formerly Twitter) and the publication of videos of countless crimes in Syria and Iraq led to the spread of fear of this terrorist group and, as a result, the successive defeats of the armies of these two Arab countries. Terrorism’s use of the cyberspace platform is a challenge that governments must find a solution for.

In this regard, Morteza Simiari, an expert on West Asian issues, reported in an interview with Mehr News Agency that an organic connection had been formed between the terrorist group of the MKO and the American and Zionist command center in Damascus. Regarding the media cooperation of terrorist groups, he said that in joint online meetings with some separatist and terrorist groups such as PJAK and Komala, the MKO asked them to coordinate with the Zionists in the cyber war and create a media connection for the Israeli regime’s aggressions in Syria.

The expert on West Asian issues continued that this action means that the hypocrisy is trying to coordinate the groups with the American-Zionist operations room. Previously, we also witnessed that Mahnaz Samadi, head of the MKO desk in Canada, also held a joint meeting with the foreign branch of the terrorist group Jaysh al-Adl to coordinate the villains with this plan.

Simiari continued that the purpose of creating new coordination between the groups is to organize terrorist teams, avoid parallel work, agree, identify and create a badge for capable cadres. Harassment and propaganda actions are another part of the joint plan that the MKO has prepared to serve other counter-revolutionary groups.

In such a situation, where terrorist groups such as the Hypocrites are making great efforts to use cyberspace to deceive public opinion in Iran, especially youth and teenagers, the need to pay attention to governance in cyberspace becomes more important than ever.