William Ruto To Meet TikTok CEO Over Content Monetisation, Moderation: "We Want To Reduce Negative Content"

• President William Ruto announced his government plans to reach out to TikTok management and agree on a content monetisation policy
• There has been debate among Kenyans about the platform perpetuating explicit content, which led to a petition tabled in parliament
• Ruto said he scheduled a meeting with TikTok global CEO Shou Zi Chew on Thursday, August 24, to agree on the best terms to tame negative content and create opportunities for youth

The government is planning to fully regulate content on TikTok and create room for creators to earn from the platform.

President William Ruto announced plans to meet with the global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the short-video platform and agree on best practices and policy.

What Ruto wants TikTok to do

Speaking during the Kenya Music Festival Winners' State Concert held at State House, Nakuru.on Wednesday, August 23, Ruto revealed a scheduled meeting between him and Shou Zi Chew.

"Tomorrow morning (Thursday, August 24), I will be speaking to the global CEO of TikTok. I know we have had a conversation as a country around TikTok and some of the challenges that are in that space... like we have the moderation capacity of other platforms, YouTube and Twitter.

We will agree on a mechanism to moderate content in their space so that we can reduce the content that is negative and leverage on the monetisation that is benefiting a lot more people," said Ruto.

There has been debate among Kenyans about the fastest-growing platform and its impact on the youth.

Petition to ban TikTok in Kenya

This followed a move by a Kenyan to petition the National Assembly to ban TikTok over violence, explicit content, and hate speech concerns.

In his petition, Bob Ndolo, CEO of Bridget Connect Consultancy, alleged that the Communications Authority (CA) has not done enough to regulate the platform.

"TikTok has been implicated in several privacy scandals over the past years. For instance, in 2019, the app was fined KSh 820 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," read part of the petition.

House Speaker Moses Wetang'ula instructed the Public Petitions Committee to review the petition and report to the House with their findings.