The creation of a Digital Agenda for the children’s safety in the Western Balkans was the focus of the first regional conference organized in Tirana by the Audiovisual Media Authority in cooperation with the Center for Children’s Rights in Albania (CRCA/ECPAT). Participants in the roundtable included TikTok platform leaders, regulators from Montenegro, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, field experts etc.
In August, the AMA established a collaboration with TikTok, which has been very successful so far. With the goal of regulating Video Sharing Platforms, a duty given to AMA by law, a dedicated link was created on the official AMA website where citizens can report content they deem harmful on TikTok. These reports are reviewed by AMA teams, and the content that violates the law is reported to TikTok. So far, hundreds of contents have been blocked for piracy and harmful content.
Having this successful experience, AMA Chair Armela Krasniqi invited her counterparts from Montenegro, Kosovo, and North Macedonia to the roundtable organized in Tirana with TikTok and CRCA/ECPAT Albania, with the aim of making this practice possible in other Balkan countries.
“The project we are presenting today is designed to inform users on how to use and benefit from the platform in a safe and responsible way. The field of digital safety is complex, and it is impossible for one entity to tackle it alone. We, as a platform, understand this, which is why we form collaborations with institutions to address this issue. I would like to express my gratitude to AMA for becoming our institutional partner in this project, as well as for the dialogue we have regarding digital safety,” said Lukasz Gabler, Public Policy and Government Relations Manager for CEE at TikTok, during the conference.
AMA Chair Armela Krasniqi emphasized that the collaboration with TikTok has been highly successful, with hundreds of harmful and pirated videos being blocked. “For me, it’s a pleasure to have a platform leader in Tirana, and for this reason, I invited the heads of regulators from North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo to attend this meeting, as I hope that the work that AMA has started will also extend to these countries,” she stated to the media.
According to Krasniqi, “it will be very necessary for these countries in our region to adopt the same approach towards this platform.”
The regulators that were present at the meeting—Branko Boskovic from the Montenegrin regulator, Executive Director Suncica Bakic, Jeton Mehmeti from the Kosovo Regulatory Authority, and Selver Ajdini from the North Macedonian regulator—presented the general situation in their respective countries regarding Video Sharing Platforms in general and TikTok in particular. All parties agreed on the need for cooperation between regulators and platforms, and the creation of a co-regulation scheme among stakeholders to ensure a safe digital environment for citizens.
“Our initiative supports the preparation and publication of easily understandable informational materials in the languages of the countries, to facilitate personalized and differentiated learning, as well as the development of awareness and training programs for teachers, child protection officials, or law enforcement officers. Every six months, we update all guidelines based on the suggestions we receive. For us, it is not only important to remove harmful content from the platform, but also to analyze how can we operate better as a platform to create a secure community,” said the TikTok representative during the roundtable.
The overall goal of TikTok’s Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans is to support the development of digital skills and safety in six countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
