The Italian Competition Authority has fined TikTok €10 million for failing to protect users from a harmful game known as the French Scar Challenge.
This comes amid ongoing moves by U.S. lawmakers to sever the ties between TikTok and its Chinese company owners, Bytedance, failure upon which the social media platform will be banned.
The Italian authority said TikTok failed to implement appropriate mechanisms to monitor content published on the platform, particularly those that may threaten the safety of minors and vulnerable individuals.
- “Moreover, this content is systematically re-proposed to users as a result of their algorithmic profiling, stimulating an ever-increasing use of the social network,” the Authority said.
A joint fine
Indicating that the fine is imposed on TikTok as a company and its owners, Bytedance, the Competition Authority in a statement announcing the fine said:
- “The Italian Competition Authority has imposed a fine of EUR 10 million jointly and severally on three companies of the Bytedance Ltd group, namely the Irish TikTok Technology Limited, the British TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited, and the Italian TikTok Italy Srl.
- “The investigation has allowed us to ascertain the responsibility of TikTok in the dissemination of content – such as those related to the “French scar” challenge – likely to threaten the psycho-physical safety of users, especially if minor and vulnerable.”
The Authority added that TikTok has not taken adequate measures to prevent the dissemination of such content, not fully complying with the Guidelines it has adopted and which it has made known to consumers by reassuring them that the platform is a ‘safe’ space.
- “In fact, the Guidelines are applied without adequately accounting for the specific vulnerability of adolescents, characterized by peculiar cognitive mechanisms from which derive, for instance, the difficulty in distinguishing reality from fiction and the tendency to emulate group behaviour.
- “Finally, the content – although potentially dangerous – is disseminated through a ‘recommendation system’ based on algorithmic user profiling, which constantly selects which videos to target to each user in the ‘For You’ and ‘Followed’ sections, to increase user interactions and time spent on the platform so to boost advertising revenue. This causes undue conditioning of users who are stimulated to use the platform increasingly,” the Italian Authority added.
TikTok faces ban in the U.S.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the short-video app, or face a ban, in the greatest threat to the app since the Trump administration.
The measure is the latest in a series of moves in Washington to respond to U.S. national security concerns about China, from connected vehicles to advanced artificial intelligence chips to cranes at U.S. ports.
- “This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it,” House Republican Steve Scalise said of TikTok on social media platform X.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later added that the Biden administration wanted to see “the Senate take swift action.”
