By Dawan Africa - Reporter
Nairobi(Mogadishu24)-TikTok has agreed to review its content policies and collaborate with the Kenyan Government to review and monitor content shared on its platform after virtual meeting between Kenyan President William Samoi Ruto and TikTok’s global CEO, Shou Zi Chew on Thursday.
A statement from the State House Kenya stated that inappropriate and explicit contents will be detected and removed from the platform.
“This new development means that inappropriate or offensive content will be expunged from the platform,” the statement read.
The statement also said that the CEO pledged to establish an office in Nairobi to coordinate the platform’s operations in the region, as well as to hire more Kenyan employees.
“During the meeting, Mr Chew also agreed to set up a Kenyan Office to coordinate its operations in the continent. He pledged to hire more Kenyans to work for the platform,” the statement reads in part.
This comes a day after the President reveals his plan to meet with the Global CEO of the popular video-sharing platform Tiktok amid public outcry of the contents shared in the platform.
“Tomorrow morning, I will be speaking with the global CEO of TikTok so that we can agree on a mechanism to moderate content in their space, so that we can reduce the content that is negative and leverage on the monetization that is benefiting a lot more people,” President Ruto said during the closing ceremony of the Kenya Music Festival in Nakuru on Wednesday.
A week earlier, a prominent Kenyan businessman Bob Ndolo, the CEO of Bridget Connect Consultancy company, has filed a petition with the parliament seeking to have Tiktok banned in Kenya.
Mr. Ndolo argued that the application promotes explicit contents, hate speech, and indecent behaviours that are against the cultural and religious norms in Kenya. He further accused the application of infringing privacy rights.
“The petition decries that while it has gained popularity among the youths in Kenya, the content that is being shared on the platform is inappropriate thus promoting violence, explicit sexual content, hate speech, vulgar language, and offensive behavior which is a serious threat to the cultural and religious views of Kenya,” said Speaker Moses Wetangula while reading the petition.
The petition garnered strong public support specially from community leaders and religious scholars, who requested for the total shutdown of the platform, stating that it will help curb indecency within the community.
