BRUSSELS \u2014 The European Commission on Friday said it found TikTok had not adequately protected children\u2019s privacy rights on its platform by allowing adults to view the accounts of minors.<\/p>\n
The action exposed children to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behavior, commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. <\/p>\n
\u201cChildren\u2019s content must never be visible to strangers,\u201d he said. If TikTok does not take steps called for by the European Union\u2019s landmark Digital Services Act, \u201cminors are exposed to predators, to grooming and to cyberbullying,\u201d Regnier said, adding that children aged 13 to 15 can \u201ceasily\u201d change their accounts from private to public and the private accounts of minors aged 16 to 17 can be seen by anyone on the internet. \u201cWe do not accept this,\u201d Regnier said. \u201cPutting default settings for minors is not a beauty contest under the DSA. It must be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investigation comes on the heels of back-to-back crackdowns on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in regulating tech behemoths including Meta and Apple.<\/p>\n
TikTok can now defend itself and reply to the findings. If unsatisfied with the Chinese firm\u2019s response, the European Commission could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and possible fine worth up to six per cent of the company\u2019s total annual revenue.<\/p>\n
The Chinese social media firm, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, said in a statement it would review Brussels\u2019 findings and \u201ccontinue to engage constructively with the Commission.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProtecting minors online is a goal we share, and we are committed to building on our strong track record of continuous improvement,\u201d TikTok said in a statement.<\/p>\n
If unsatisfied with the firm\u2019s response, the commission could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and possible fine worth up to six per cent of the company\u2019s total annual revenue.<\/p>\n
The commission estimates most of TikTok\u2019s 170 million users in the EU are children, with seven per cent of children aged 12 to 15 spending four to five hours daily on the app.<\/p>\n
The 27-nation European Union found in February that TikTok had breached another aspect of its digital rule book with an \u201caddictive design\u201d of features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling that could harm the physical and mental health of users and minors especially.<\/p>\n
Sam Mcneil, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS \u2014 The European Commission on Friday said it found TikTok had not adequately protected children\u2019s privacy rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,269,1608,9061],"class_list":["post-30122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-brussels","tag-business","tag-international","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116974835697832511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}