“Albania will not extend the one-year ban on TikTok,” Prime Minister Edi Rama told POLITICO, praising the platform for its cooperation with the Albanian government.
Rama said that after constructive meetings with the social media platform, "we are satisfied with the result." "We have made the partnership and I hope that in the coming weeks or months we will reveal the plan to the Albanian people, as we promised."
Rama said he was "very surprised" by TikTok's reaction after Albania's initial decision to ban the platform.
“Because at first, because it was normal to think that they would fight us, they would take revenge on us, they would harass us. I met them myself and I was very impressed by their stance. They were listening very carefully to our points,” Rama told POLITICO on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans Summit.
TikTok did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment.
TikTok blamed for online violence and abuse after 14-year-old's murder
The EU candidate country imposed the ban in March 2025 after about a year of talks with TikTok over online abuse, including two suicides believed to be linked to bullying on the platform. The fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old boy outside a school after an online dispute was the final straw, and the government ordered internet service providers to block access to the desktop and app versions.
However, the move sparked a backlash from opposition parties and NGOs, who accused the government of censorship and restricting political expression online. Agron Gjekmarkaj, an Albanian MP from the largest opposition group, told POLITICO earlier this year that Rama was using the ban ahead of the May elections to weaken the opposition’s online presence.
When asked if the ban was effective in curbing violence in schools, Rama replied: “It has been effective in building this relationship with TikTok and in bringing in some safeguards that didn’t exist.”
However, local media reports reveal that the ban had little effect on solving the issue of school violence or the rise of digital violence.
But Albania is unlikely to support restrictions on minors' use of social media, a topic currently under discussion in various EU capitals and in Brussels, if it joins the union. Rama has set 2030 as the target for EU membership.
"This is nonsense. This is something that Albania will not consider. It does not work," he said, acknowledging that his government has looked into it, but "if you do not have a full disclosure of who is behind this, you will always be a victim of attacks by trolls and bots," the prime minister said.
