Chinese-owned video platform, TikTok has disclosed that the company will open a regional office in the Eastern African country of Kenya.
This is coming after the CEO of the company, Shou Zi Chew, met with Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday.
Chew also announced that improper content would be taken down from the short-form video in order to ensure that the content on its site complies with community norms while working with the Kenyan authorities. The company added that Kenyan will be employed to work in the company.
This action comes in response to a petitioner’s request that Kenyan lawmakers outlaw TikTok. The app has mostly employed young people, according to the majority leader, Kimani Ichung’wa, thus parliament cannot oversee its suspension.
The Minority Leader, Opiyo Wandayi, concurred and asserted that given Kenya’s high unemployment rate and the challenging times the country is going through, the country cannot live independently in the digital era.
A review of the rules guarding users of social media was also announced by Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communication, and the Digital Economy on August 2, 2023. He also voiced concern over the current pattern of TikTok users broadcasting sexual content between the hours of 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Kenya has the highest TikTok usage rate globally, with 54% of users there using the app for general purposes and 29% for news, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023.
