Senators Say TikTok Needs To Be Regulated In Kenya

Senators have made it clear that Chinese owned, viral social media platform known as TikTok, should be regulated in the country.

Led by Nominated Senator Iman Falhada Dekow, the legislators voiced their thoughts over the safety of data created by the users when creating their profiles and said the app should be regulated.

Speaking at the floor of the House during a sitting recently, Dekow said the social media application also promotes the culture of violence, bullying hate speech and sexually explicit content.

“Mr Speaker, there have been various issues on the application on data privacy. The application gathers the information on the user’s country location, internet address an type of device. It also ascertains user’s exact locationa and phone’s contacts,” she said.

The nominated senator lobbied the standing committee on information and technology to work with other government agencies to create a policy and legal framework to ensure the safe usage of the application.

On his part, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei said though the application was famous with the young people, it was obvious internet as a whole had replaced morals and values and thus supported Dekow’s suggestion.

Senator Isaac Mwaura said the regulation should also be done to other apps such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.

“The same should apply to Facebook and Twitter. It is important to check how the user’s data is being used,” he said.

TikTok has consistently denied the allegations by the US saying user data is stored in the US itself with a backup in Singapore.