William Ruto
President William Ruto is set to meet with TikTok Chief executive Shou Zi Chew on Thursday August 24 amid concerns over harmful content on the platform that has been deemed inappropriate for Kenyan audiences more especially children under the age of 18 years who have access to smartphones.
While speaking in Nakuru state lodge on Wednesday during the Kenya Music festival winner’s State concert, the President stated that he will discuss strategies and methods with the executive that will enable the tech firm to moderate content on the platform to make it more appropriate.
“Tomorrow morning, I will be speaking to the global CEO of TikTok so that we can agree on a mechanism to moderate content on their space so that we can reduce the content that is negative and leverage the monetization that is benefitting a lot more people.” Said President Ruto.
This comes after a petition was brought on the floor of Parliament seeking to ban the tech firm from displaying its content in Kenya citing that it contained and promoted inappropriate and harmful behaviors like violence which could have a negative impact in the country especially to children who are growing.
The petition attracted mixed reactions as legislators fiercely debated on wether the App should be banned or not as those of the contrary opinion stating how it has helped the youths get employment through monetization.
Additionally, President Ruto stated that the monetization issue will also be discussed so as to enable people earn revenue from their talents.
“Over the past year, I have discussed with the owners of social media platforms from Facebook to Twitter, to TikTok including YouTube and we have progressed our conversation and I am happy to say that two of them have already agreed to monetize content in Kenya.” Said the Head of State.
“YouTube for example, we are now at 80% monetization. We are one of the four countries in the African continent that we can now monetize our content on YouTube,” He added.
The President further emphasized as to why the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) should be posting their content on the social media platforms especially content from Drama and Music festival.
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