The ministry of ICT has told the National Assembly that every three months, TikTok will produce compliance reports detailing their efforts in combating obscene sexual and offensive content.
- The Principal Secretary for ICT, John Tanui, mentioned that this was part of the agreement the Kenyan government and the social media app instituted last year.
- Tanui told parliamentary members that the Ministry considered that a regulation was better than a total restriction of the app in Kenya.
- A ban would have inconvenienced young people who predominantly earned money from the app as influencers, at a time when the government intends to collect revenue from digital content creation.
“To facilitate easy community reporting, TikTok is required to share quarterly compliance reports with the Ministry, clearly showing content removed and reasons for the same,” said the Principal Secretary of the ICT ministry John Tanui.
In August last year, a petitioner called Bob Ndolo called on members of parliament to ban the app in Kenya over what he termed as “erosion of cultural and religious morals” in society. Later that month, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told President William Ruto in a virtual meeting that the app was committed towards moderating the content to prevent hate speech, misinformation, and sexually explicit content.
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023 survey indicates that Kenya leads in TikTok usage globally with 54%. Moreover, 29% of TikTok users who are sourcing for news in the app are Kenyans.
The app’s popularity in Kenya since 2020 has created a rift between some people who blame the social media platform as a vessel of degeneracy, while its users scowl at the government’s efforts to control the app as a violation of free speech and expression.
In March this year, Cabinet Secretary for Interior affairs, Kithure Kindiki, suggested that government officials would be banned from using TikTok. According to Kindiki, the move would protect sensitive government data as well as national security information.
Governments in many parts of the world have not been fond of TikTok. The US, which prides itself for unlimited expression and free speech, recently had its congress ban TikTok in almost bipartisan unanimity over data security issues. However, the country’s app users were certain that the move was informed by the desire to block access to information on various sensitive issues like the Palestine-Israeli war.
In Africa, Somalia and Senegal banned the app, with other African countries like Uganda and Egypt being next in line. As the app continues to face crackdown globally, pundits are concerned whether calls for regulation are meant to give greater control to the governments – most of which are tyrannical and oppressive. This would ultimately impurify the spirit of free speech which social media networks have promoted since their inception. How will TikTok navigate this dilemma? That remains to be seen in the coming days.
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