The social network has been suspended since August 2. The demonstrations on the sidelines of the arrest of the opponent Ousmane Sonko then justified this decision by the authorities. But the government does not intend to lift this suspension for the moment.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Juliette Dubois
The suspension was supposed to be temporary, but it is starting to drag on. The Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, Moussa Bocar Thiam, affirms that it will remain in force as long as TikTok does not provide guarantees on its self-regulation.
Among the reasons given, the lack of preventive measures to protect privacy and minors and the lack of filters to guarantee “ public safety and good morals “. According to the minister, violent, tendentious and terrorist content is circulating on the application. He also recalls that numerous videos of the riots of March 2021 and June 2023 had been shared on TikTok.
The Chinese application with a billion subscribers is used by 450,000 people in Senegal, mostly young people, according to the company Start.io. And many app users are now getting around this suspension by using VPN software. Amnesty International and Internet Without Borders denounce an attack on freedom of information.