The social media platform TikTok, with more than 200 million users in Europe, is one of the most popular social networks also in our country, especially among young people. However, the platform does not provide adequate protection for minors as required by the DSA, the European Commission said. Since minors’ user accounts on TikTok do not meet the safety standards required from online platforms under the European Digital Services Act (DSA), TikTok now faces a potential fine for violating the legislation.
Among other things, children and teenagers can set their accounts to public, meaning that anyone on the internet, including people without a TikTok account, can see the content they post. The European Commission also stated that even setting a user account as private does not provide minors with complete privacy.
TikTok has now the chance to review the European Commission’s findings and respond before the Commission issues its final decision following the conclusion of the investigation. If the findings are confirmed also at the end of the investigation, the social media platform, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, could face a fine of up to 6% of its annual turnover.
