TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania's prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children.
Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok “would be fully closed for all. ... There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania." Rama said the shutdown would begin sometime next year.
It was not immediately clear if TikTok has a contact in Albania.
TikTok in an email response Saturday to a request for comment asked for “urgent clarity from the Albanian government” on the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had "found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident were being posted on another platform, not TikTok.”
Albanian children comprise the largest group of TikTok users in the country, according to domestic researchers.
There has been increasing concern from Albanian parents after reports of children taking knives and other objects to school to use in quarrels or cases of bullying promoted by stories they see on TikTok.
TikTok's operations in China, where its parent company is based, are different, “promoting how to better study, how to preserve nature ... and so on,” according to Rama.
Albania is too small a country to impose on TikTok a change of its algorithm so that it does not promote “the reproduction of the unending hell of the language of hatred, violence, bullying and so on," Rama’s office wrote in an email response to The Associated Press' request for comment. Rama's office said that in China TikTok "prevents children from being sucked into this abyss.”
Authorities have set up a series of protective measures at schools, starting with an increased police presence, training programs and closer cooperation with parents.
Rama said Albania would follow how the company and other countries react to the one-year shutdown before deciding whether to allow the company to resume operations in Albania.
Not everyone agreed with Rama’s decision to close TikTok.
“The dictatorial decision to close the social media platform TikTok ... is a grave act against freedom of speech and democracy,” said Ina Zhupa, a lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic Party. “It is a pure electoral act and abuse of power to suppress freedoms.”
Albania holds parliamentary elections next year.
Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini
FILE - A view of the TikTok app logo, in Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices are leaping Monday with worries that the Iran war will clog the global flow of crude and make inflation even worse. U.S. stocks, meanwhile, are swinging between sharp losses and a tiny gain.
Crude prices jumped more than 5%, which will likely mean higher prices soon at gasoline pumps. That would hurt not only U.S. households, whose spending makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, but also businesses with big fuel bills.
The S&P 500 fell as much as 1.2% at the start of trading, and cruise lines and airlines led the way lower. But the index quickly erased most of the loss, in part because past military conflicts have not led to sustained drops for markets, and it fell 0.1% in afternoon trading.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 64 points, or 0.1%, as of 1:39 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
Prices for natural gas remained higher, meanwhile, which could raise heating bills for the remainder of the winter, after a major supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe said it would stop production because of the war. Gold climbed 1.2% as investors looked for safer things to own and as U.S. officials tried to persuade the world that this war will not last forever.
“This is not Iraq,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday. “This is not endless.”
Typically, Treasury yields also fall when investors are feeling nervous. But yields instead climbed, in part because higher oil prices will put upward pressure on inflation, which is already worse than nearly everyone would like. That could tie the Federal Reserve’s hands and keep it from cutting interest rates.
Lower interest rates can boost the economy and job market, while also worsening inflation. Higher rates can do the opposite.
Past military conflicts in the Middle East have not caused long-term drops for markets. For this war to knock down U.S. stocks in a significant and sustained way, the price of oil would perhaps need to jump above $100 per barrel, according to strategists at Morgan Stanley led by Michael Wilson.
Oil prices are still well below there. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 5.7% to $70.85. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 6.2% to $77.42 per barrel.
That helped the U.S. stock market pare some of its steep, opening loss. Morgan Stanley says the S&P 500 has climbed an average of 2%, 6% and 8% in the one, six and 12 months following “geopolitical risk events” historically. That's going back to the Korean War, which began in 1950, and the 1956 Suez crisis.
At the moment, though, fear is still running through markets.
Stocks of airlines were some of Monday’s sharpest losers. Not only do higher oil prices threaten their already big fuel bills, the fighting in the Middle East also closed airports and left travelers stranded.
United Airlines fell 2.9%, and American Airlines lost 3.9%.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings fell even more, 9.1%. It needs customers to have plenty of cash to spend after paying for their gasoline bills and other essentials.
The cruise operator also reported weaker revenue for its latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit was better. Its forecast for profit this upcoming fiscal year was lower than analysts expected.
Hotels, discount retailers and other companies that benefit when customers have more cash in their pocket from lower fuel bills also lagged the market. MGM Resorts fell 3.1%, and Dollar Tree lost 4.1%.
Stocks in the housing industry also struggled as higher Treasury yields could translate into more expensive mortgage rates. Paint company Sherwin-Williams fell 2.1%, and homebuilder D.R. Horton lost 4.1%.
Helping to limit Wall Street's losses were oil companies, which benefited from the rising prices for crude. Exxon Mobil climbed 1.2%, and Occidental Petroleum rose 1.6%.
Companies that make equipment for the military also strengthened. Lockheed Martin climbed 2.8%, and RTX rallied 4%.
Palantir Technologies, whose software helps global defense agencies, jumped 6.5% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500.
Big Tech stocks also helped to support the market. Nvidia rose 2.9% and was the strongest single force pushing upward on the S&P 500.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Germany’s DAX lost 2.6%, France’s CAC 40 fell 2.2% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 2.1% for some of the world’s larger losses.
Stocks in Shanghai were an outlier and rose 0.5%.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.05% from 3.97% late Friday. A report showing growth for U.S. manufacturing was better than economists expected last month also helped to lift yields.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
James Denaro, center, and others work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Iraqi Shiite carry a mock coffin of Iranian supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Tehran, during a symbolic funeral, in Najaf, Iraq, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)
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