TIRANA: Albanian authorities have ordered all Internet service providers to block access to TikTok by Thursday.
Providers are required to block relevant IP addresses and DNS servers linked to the app, according to a statement by the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority.
Prime Minister Edi Rama first announced the ban in December, after a confrontation that started on social media led to the killing of a 14-year-old student and another being injured in a fight near a school in the capital Tirana.
The killing sparked a debate about the impact of social networks on young people.
But the opposition has called for protests, saying the ban would have an impact on their campaign ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections in May.
TikTok has a huge following among young people with a never-ending scroll of ultra-brief videos and has more than one billion active users worldwide.
But the Chinese-owned platform has been regularly hit by controversy.
The app has faced allegations of espionage in the US and is under investigation by the European Union over claims it was used to sway Romania’s presidential election in favor of a far-right candidate.
Meanwhile in Albania, officials have slammed TikTok for its alleged role in promoting violence, including fighting at schools.
Elsewhere in the world, TikTok is regularly accused of confining users to content silos via an opaque algorithm and of promoting the spread of misinformation, along with illegal, violent, or obscene content — particularly among young people.
Several countries have banned it for varying periods, including Pakistan, Nepal and France in the territory of New Caledonia.
AFP, among more than a dozen other fact-checking organizations, is paid by TikTok in several countries to verify videos that potentially contain false information.
Albania orders Internet operators to block TikTok within 24 hours
https://arab.news/9srk8
Albania orders Internet operators to block TikTok within 24 hours
- Announcement of ban came after a confrontation that started on social media led to the killing of a teenager
Grok faces more scrutiny over deepfakes as Irish regulator opens EU privacy investigation
- The regulator says Grok has created and shared sexualized images of real people, including children. Researchers say some examples appear to involve minors
- X also faces other probes in Europe over illegal content and user safety
LONDON: Elon Musk’s social media platform X faces a European Union privacy investigation after its Grok AI chatbot started spitting out nonconsensual deepfake images, Ireland’s data privacy regulator said Tuesday.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said it notified X on Monday that it was opening the inquiry under the 27-nation EU’s strict data privacy regulations, adding to the scrutiny X is facing in Europe and other parts of the world over Grok’s behavior.
Grok sparked a global backlash last month after it started granting requests from X users to undress people with its AI image generation and editing capabilities, including putting females in transparent bikinis or revealing clothing. Researchers said some images appeared to include children. The company later introduced some restrictions on Grok, though authorities in Europe weren’t satisfied.
The Irish watchdog said its investigation focuses on the apparent creation and posting on X of “potentially harmful” nonconsensual intimate or sexualized images containing or involving personal data from Europeans, including children.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
Grok was built by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and is available through X, where its responses to user requests are publicly visible.
The watchdog said the investigation will seek to determine whether X complied with the EU data privacy rules known as GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation. Under the rules, the Irish regulator takes the lead on enforcing the bloc’s privacy rules because X’s European headquarters is in Dublin. Violations can result in hefty fines.
The regulator “has been engaging” with X since media reports started circulating weeks earlier about “the alleged ability of X users to prompt the @Grok account on X to generate sexualized images of real people, including children,” Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a press statement.
Spain’s government has ordered prosecutors to investigate X, Meta and TikTok for alleged crimes related to the creation and proliferation of AI-generated child sex abuse material on their platforms, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday.
“These platforms are attacking the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” Sánchez wrote on X.
Spain announced earlier this month that it was pursuing a ban on access to social media platforms for under-16s.
Earlier this month, French prosecutors raided X’s Paris offices and summoned Musk for questioning. Meanwhile, the data privacy and media regulators in Britain, which has left the EU, have opened their own investigations into X.
The platform is already facing a separate EU investigation from Brussels over whether it has been complying with the bloc’s digital rulebook for protecting social media users that requires platforms to curb the spread of illegal content such as child sexual abuse material.
