When TikTok Tumbles
In a pretty bold move, the Albanian government has completely banned TikTok for the entire country for the whole year of 2025. This follows the tragic murder of a teenage boy by a classmate after an altercation on the platform, and is based on their theory that this social platform is not good for children (but they’ve applied a sweeping ban for everyone).
I thought this was pretty bold, but after doing some more digging, it turns out that the Chinese-owned platform is also banned in Afghanistan, India, Iran, Jordan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Senegal, Somalia, Syria, and Uzbekistan. Albania is joining a growing list of countries.
The Australian government has been far gentler (maybe) in their approach with harm minimisation for minors. They’ve instead applied the ban only to U16s instead of the whole population, but conversely are a bit more equitable with their ban. All social platforms will be banned to minors from late 2025. The ethics here are murky. There are huge wins for child development. I’m an 80s kid who grew up who actively shunned MySpace, and only got onto Facebook in my last year of uni. (Although, boy, I was hooked fast. I think it was all the poking.)
On the other side, there is a huge argument around whether this now becomes a human rights issue. The world is a pretty scary place and the internet can provide a safe community of likeminded individuals across the world. A safe haven to connect with others based on niche interests, illnesses, gender or sexual identities or situations, and all online away from the prying eyes of your immediate geographic community or household.
Then there’s the impending ban in the USA of TikTok that has been months in the making, although Trump has hinted at the idea of scrapping that because he has a soft spot for the platform. Weird because of his overt racism towards anything related to the Chinese in general. This shows that governments around the world are really setting social media (and weirdly TikTok specifically) in their sights as a potential enemy.
I hate to say this, but the Albanian ban is unlikely to have far reaching impact on a global level as Albania isn’t a powerhouse nation for content exports. Unless we’re counting British-born and based Dua Lipa due to the 2 years she lived in Pristina as a child. An American ban, on the other hand, will absolutely have big impacts due to their status as one of the world’s leading exporters of culture (film, TV, books, social media, music) and also a whopping 170M TikTok users as well. Potential global impacts include:
Creators who have built up considerable audiences (and likely used a lot of money, brain power, and time getting there) will pretty much lose their audiences.
Same for brands—TikTok is a key channel to advertise on.
Even if it’s only blocked in one country, it really impacts other countries if a lot of consumers OR creators are from that country. A ban in the USA would likely really reduce TikTok globally, as a lot of the creators we watch across the world are from the USA.
If I’m a social media user in Aus and all my fave US creators are back to Instagram, and my fave brands are pushing out content on Instagram/YouTube, you can guess where I’ll be going to watch content instead.
It would be an interesting social experiment. We’ve been used to increased globalisation now that the idea of local communities and businesses based on geographic limitations would be almost unfathomable to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
So how can businesses, creators and artists prepare?
Social media platforms are walled gardens, meaning that your engagement, data and audiences cannot be removed. Do not rely on just one. It’s really common for brands and creators to have one platform that shines above all others, but actively work at raising your profile across all to avoid losing your audience in one fell swoop.
Grow that email or SMS list, and ensure you own it somewhere that is compliant with the various government policies like GDPR and CCPA. Make sure this is saved somewhere safe and updated regularly.
And on that note—think about the value exchange. Why are people giving you their email address when they can just follow you on social media?
Keep your finger on the pulse for changing laws and regulations for the top countries your audience lives in. You might be from Australia, but if 80% of your fans are based in the States, then that is of concern to you.
It can seem all too overwhelming, but on the flip side I’m pretty pleased that governments around the world are connecting the dots between mental wellbeing and social media use. They might need to just fine tune the solutions a bit.
