Chinese social media platform TikTok has announced that it has no plans to monetize Kenyan creators.

The platform, which has monetized creators in the Americas and other regions, remained tight-lipped as to when it will roll out tokenization for creators in the continent, a factor that continues to raise eyebrows among Kenyan creatives.

TikTok Sub-Saharan Africa Head of Sales, Global Business Solutions Carl Jordan confirmed that African creatives could wait longer, stating that TikTok currently has no such plans.

“Our focus now is creating communities and connecting creatives with brands. We don’t have a plan yet for paying African creatives, not at this stage,” said Jordan.

Currently, the platform has only monetized South Africa, begging the question of the criteria used in rolling out the program for creatives, further casting aspersion on why TikTok has cherry-picked specific regions for monetization.

Kenya is one of the top countries with users on TikTok. A report by ByteDance disclosed that the platform has 10.6 million Kenyan creatives as of early 2024.