The Italian Competition and Market Authority has imposed a fine of 10 million euros to TikTok because the company’s controls over the content distributed on the platform are “inadequate”, especially that which could endanger the safety of minors and vulnerable people.
With that he has made his decisionor jointly impose a fine on the Irish company TikTok Technology Limited, the British TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited and the Italian TikTok Italy, from the Bytedance Group.
In March last year The authority decided to open an investigation This made it possible to verify the responsibility of the application when disseminating content, for example in the context of the “French scar” challenge, which can endanger the psychophysical safety of users, especially if they are minors and vulnerable.
Furthermore, he points out TikTok failed to take appropriate action to prevent the dissemination of this content, while not fully respecting the guidelines it has adopted and communicated to consumers, assuring them that the platform is a “safe” space.
In fact, she considers that such guidelines apply without sufficient consideration of vulnerability specific to adolescents, characterized by particular cognitive mechanisms that give rise, for example, to the difficulty of distinguishing reality from fiction and the tendency to imitate group behavior.
Last September, The social network was fined €345 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission after failings were identified in the protection of the data of underage users of the application in the second half of 2020.
This Wednesday, The US House of Representatives approved it by a majority of 352 votes with 65 votes against the draft law that could lead to the ban of its application in the country, with the exception of the divestment from its parent company, the Chinese company ByteDance.
The bill must now go through the same process in the US Senate before taking office from President Joe Biden, who has already expressed his willingness to sign the bill if it receives approval from both chambers.
