Kyrgyzstan’s Minister of Culture decided to block TikTok in his country on Wednesday (30/8/2023). This is because the content on the social media service from China is considered to have the potential to disrupt children’s mental health and attitudes.
Recently, Western countries have imposed a ban on the use of TikTok for workers and state officials. The governments of a number of countries are concerned that the application has ties to the Chinese government and is willing to provide users’ personal data.
1. Creates addiction and disrupts children’s mental health
The Ministry of Culture of Kyrgyzstan said that the TikTok application had a negative impact on children’s development. These social media applications are addictive and have a risk of causing a decrease in mental health for children.
“TikTok presents short videos that hypnotize its users, especially teenagers. A number of these videos sometimes make teenagers potentially imitate dangerous actions like those in the videos,” said the Ministry of Culture of Kyrgyzstan, quoted by I24 News .
This decision was based on a request from an organization that was concerned about the condition of children in Kyrgyzstan due to the TikTok application. The ministry also said that TikTok repeatedly violated restrictions on content that is harmful to children.
2. Some countries have blocked TikTok access
Apart from Kyrgyzstan, it is noted that there are several countries that have banned the operation of TikTok for all users. Some of those countries, including India, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, and Jordan.
The majority of these countries consider TikTok to be a means of spreading fake news to the public. Apart from that, the social media application is considered to be a medium of invitation to carry out acts of violence and demonstrations.
Meanwhile in India, TikTok has been blocked since 2020, following incidents of clashes between Indian and Chinese military personnel in the Himalayas. In 2021, India gave TikTok a chance to improve personal data protection, but the local government ultimately went ahead with the ban.
3. Kyrgyzstan about Kloop Media
This week, the Kyrgyz government decided to block access to independent media, the Kloop Media Public Foundation, which publishes anti-corruption investigations in the government. In addition, this media also provides training to journalists in the Central Asian country regarding fact-checking and investigative techniques.
One of the founders of Kloop, Bektour Iskender, said that the government’s liquidation was due to an investigation regarding the involvement of President Japarov’s relatives and the Head of the National Security Committee in the establishment of a football academy in Kyrgyzstan.
Previously, Japarov had confirmed the construction of a project in collaboration with Spanish club FC Barcelona which was claimed to be a social facility in Kyrgyzstan. Apart from that, he accused Kloop of only producing negative content related to the government.
Source : IDNTIMES