President William Ruto
Image: courtesy

Even as calls for the app to be banned grow throughout the nation, President William Ruto has made clear that he intends to speak with the TiTok CEO.

Speaking in Nakuru, Ruto proposed that TikTok and other social media platforms could be controlled to guarantee that the information published was appropriate.

"I will speak to the global CEO of Tiktok and we have moderation capacities on YouTube and X (former Twitter)  so that we can agree on a mechanism to moderate content on their space," he said.

 
 

The president emphasised that by moderating the platforms, unpleasant content might be reduced and more attention could be given to monetization.

Ruto also disclosed a conversation he had regarding content monetization with Facebook's owners.

"I had a conversation with Facebook and they have agreed to test with 25 of our creators to see how we can monetize content," he added.

 
 

This occurs even as a Kenyan citizen petitioned the government to ban the TikTok app.

The main justification for his request for a ban was the promotion of violent and graphic materials.

Moses Wetang'ula, the speaker of the National Assembly, acknowledged receiving the petition last week.

Wetang'ula reported that Bob Ndolo, the executive officer of the Brigde Connect Consultancy, had submitted a petition to his office.

After the petition was submitted, lawmakers got into a heated argument about whether to completely forbid it or apply more stringent content filtering.

Due to worries about national security, the social media platform TikTok has frequently faced prohibitions in the US.

The social networking platform has drawn critics from beyond Kenya's borders.

Federal personnel and state employees in 34 (out of 50) states are not allowed to use the app on official equipment as of June 2023.

Montana became the first state to outlaw TikTok in May 2023, though the ban won't go into force until January 1, 2024, and it's currently being contested in court.