TIRANA, March 11 (Reuters) - Albania's Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that the government's one-year ban of TikTok, which expired last month, was unconstitutional and violated freedom of speech.
The ban, imposed last year and initially linked to the death of a teenage boy after bullying online, saw Chinese-owned short video platform TikTok banned for all users in the country. At the time TikTok said the clash did not originate on their platform.
The ban expired on February 5, 2026, and the government cited new "safety mechanisms" implemented by TikTok.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the Constitutional Court said the government had not sufficiently examined the repercussions of implementing a ban and had not "convincingly proven that a general blocking of the platform constitutes the only effective and necessary means to achieve the intended objective."
It also said that the ban violated freedom of the press and freedom of expression.
The ruling was issued in response to a motion filed by the Association of Journalists of Albania (AGSH) and Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) last March.
Opposition parties accused the government of trying to silence them by banning the platform weeks before parliamentary elections last year, which the government denies.
(Reporting by Florian Goga and Fatos Bytyci; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
