TikTok CEO to set up office in Nairobi, hire more Kenyans

By Peter Ochieng

President William Ruto on Thursday morning held a virtual meeting with TikTok Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shou Zi Chew.

During the engagement, the two leaders agreed on the need for the Chinese short video hosting platform to work with Kenya in reviewing and monitoring its content.

President William Ruto said the move will ensure that content on the platform adheres to agreed guidelines.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on his part committed to ensuring that content is moderated, to fit community standards.

"This new development means that inappropriate or offensive content will be expunged from the platform," states a note from State House, Nairobi.

Additionally, Mr Chew agreed to set up a Kenyan office to coordinate TikTok operations in the African continent.

Under the same breadth, he pledged to hire more Kenyans to work for the platform.

Cabinet Secretary for Industrialisation Moses Kuria is among a host of others, who attended the meeting.

The meeting comes in the wake of a petition before the National Assembly, seeking to ban the popular short video platform in the country.

Bob Ndolo, Bridget Connect Consultancy CEO in his petition to National Assembly argued that the explicit content in TikTok promotes violence, sex, hate speech and vulgarity which undermines the cultural and religious values of Kenyans.

“While it has gained popularity among the youths in Kenya, the content that is being shared on the platform is inappropriate thus promoting violence, explicit sexual content, hate speech, vulgar language, and offensive behavior which is a serious threat to the cultural and religious views of Kenya," he says in the petition.

Ndolo sought intervention of the National Assembly, owing to what he termed as Communication Authority's inability to regulate, remove or block inappropriate content on the Chinese owned App.

He says the App has been banned or fined in various countries among them United States, for breach of privacy laws.

"TikTok has been implicated in several privacy scandals over the past years. For instance, in 2019, the app was fined $5.7 million by the USA Federal Trade Commission for illegally collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 by collecting data such as names, email addresses, and locations from young users without their parents consent thus violating Children's Online Privacy Protection Act."

However, a section of legislatures who spoke to the issue among them majority leader in the national assembly Kimani Inchung'wah and his minority counterpart Opiyo Wandayi, seemingly pointed to the fact that banning the app may not be an easy undertaking.

They said most young people are making thousands of shillings on the app, which has become their source of employment.

Speaker Wetang'ula directed the National Assembly's Public Petitions Committee, to consider the petition and report its findings.