Ruto To Hold High-Stakes Meeting With TikTok CEO [VIDEO]

President William Ruto has announced that he will on Thursday, August 24 hold a meeting with global TikTok Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shou Zi Chew.

Speaking in Nakuru during the Kenya Music Festival Winner's State Concert, the Head of State noted that the talks will be aimed at developing policies for the moderation of content uploaded on the platform every day in the country.

He also noted that the talks will also cover the monetization aspect of Tiktok which has seen Kenyans earn money from the platform through their content, be it directly or indirectly through external marketing deals with companies.

The high-stakes meeting comes amid concerns over harmful and explicit content on the platform that has been deemed inappropriate for Kenyan audiences, especially children, which particularly gains prevalence during the late hours.

"Tomorrow morning, 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 moderation capacities of the other platforms...tomorrow morning, we are having that conversation with the global CEO of TikTok so that we can agree on a mechanism to moderate content in their space so that we can reduce the content that is negative, and leverage on the monetization that is benefiting a lot more people," he revealed.

Ruto further revisited the talks he held with Facebook in 2022, updating that the social media giant under Meta agreed to test with 25 Kenyan creators so that they can unlock the potential of monetizing content in the space, currently boasting close to three billion users worldwide.

The Head of State opened up on the lucrative nature of the digital space, revealing that the country has managed to rake up to half a billion shillings monthly from the social media platforms.

"People may be asking themselves, what is the quantum? Let me tell you that every month, Kenya is getting between Ksh300 million and Ksh500 million every month from these platforms.

"So we are increasing our revenues as a country from this space. We need to manage the negative effects, but we need to promote the positive effects that are making our artists, content creators and many other people in that space explore opportunities, make money and grow their talents," he went on.

The talks with Zi Chew can be seen as a response to the debate that was triggered from Parliament to across the country after a Kenyan petitioner submitted a request to have lawmakers outlaw the social media platform over its explicit content.

Speaker, Moses Wetangula had announced on Tuesday, August 15 that a Kenyan, Bridget Connect Consultancy CEO Bob Ndolo, presented the petition seeking TikTok's total ban, claiming that it is promoting violence, explicit sexual content, hate speech, vulgar language, and offensive behaviour among the youth, further pointing fingers at the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) for failing to regulate the platform.

National Assembly Majority Leader, Kimani Ichung'wah however argued that the petition was presented in bad faith and termed it a mistake to ban the platform from the country owing to the explosive rise in technology, and instead offering to regulate the content shared on the platform.

"We cannot as a House preside over banning of any app, we cannot fight with technology. Ndolo should have petitioned the house to look at ways to regulate the use of these apps, and how the ICT department will be able to regulate the content," he explained.

"Outright banning would be killing careers. The government now appreciates this as an industry we can raise revenues. We just need to regulate."

Ichung'wah challenged Ndolo to provide a framework for the regulation of content on the platform instead of blanket-banning it from the country, which would threaten to kill the careers and source of income young people make from the app with their content.