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Thursday, March 21, 2024 –Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki is pushing to ban Tik Tok in the country.
This was revealed in a statement he issued before the Parliamentary Committee on Thursday March 21 saying the Chinese-owned tech company was not complying with Kenyan government guidelines.
Kindiki, who was making an appearance before the Public Petitions Committee on Thursday, said ByteDance was not adhering to the ethical standards in Kenya and, due to that, it is required to respond to a demand letter send to them, failure government of Kenya could take administrative actions.
Asked whether the plan is to immediately ban the social media platform, Prof Kindiki clarified that, at the moment, this could be a premature move not unless the Tik Tok owners completely fail to comply as required.
“I don’t think we’re in a position to declare the dangers outweigh the benefits. It’s a bit premature. We should work out a program where we have a policy that is evidence-based to assess whether the risks are more prominent than the benefits,” he noted.
“It will be premature. What we’re doing right now is a procedural requirement by law. Whatever the measures the government will take is administrative action and there’s a procedure including listening to those affected.”
Soon, Kindiki noted, government will have to analyse both the benefits and risks in the platform and, if the latter outweighs the former, then there will be need to push for the ouster of the platform.
Kenyans on Tik Tok have been misusing the platform including posting videos that humiliate others as well as videos that sound pornographic.
In Africa, Kenya is ranked among the fist three consumers of Tik Tok content.
