Deputy Minister of Science and Education Firudin Gurbanov publicly confirmed on October 21 that TikTok is blocked within Azerbaijani school networks. He said the restriction had been in place since at least June 2026, when the deputy minister first announced it—meaning enforcement preceded any public legal announcement by months. More than 200 categories of content (crime, drugs, violence, and “other dangerous topics”) are also restricted across school networks. He urged families to extend similar monitoring into the home.
The blocking is implemented through school network infrastructure controls rather than the extrajudicial blocking mechanism used for websites under the Law on Information (documented in earlier AzNetWatch entries). It does not appear to be based on a court order or formal administrative decision published for public review. A social media age restriction law adopted on June 30, 2026 — requiring platforms to verify users are at least 16, with parental consent for 16–18-year-olds — does not come into force until August 2027 and is separate from this school-level block.
The school-level TikTok block follows the broader documented pattern in Azerbaijan’s internet censorship architecture: the July 2026 amendments enabling extrajudicial blocking of websites based on undefined categories (“false information,” “insult,” “defamation”); the blocking of OC Media’s website in June 2026; and the disruption of Instagram and TikTok for Azerbaijani users on October 12 during the hijab ban protests. The school block is distinct in that it targets a specific platform in a specific institutional context rather than applying a blanket national block — but its implementation without a publicly announced legal basis, and the fact that enforcement preceded public announcement by months, is consistent with the pattern of opaque, extrajudicial content control documented throughout 2026. It also occurs in the context of TikTok being the primary platform through which hijab-ban protest videos were distributed, and where Gudrat Abdullayev was sentenced to 25 days of administrative detention (October 7, 2026) for posting content about the ban.