TikTok, the popular social media platform owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd, has been hit with a hefty fine of $368 million by the European Union (EU). The EU’s agency in charge of overseeing data protection imposed the penalty on TikTok because the company’s data processing practices were found to be in violation of the bloc’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Specifically, the company’s child safeguarding practices were under intense scrutiny, given its wide user base of over 1 billion people globally. In addition to the fine, TikTok is also facing potential bans, with the EU recently placing it on a list of tech firms that have six months to comply with new digital markets rules.
In response to the fine, TikTok issued a statement expressing disagreement with the decision and highlighting that the criticisms raised by the Irish authority primarily focused on features and settings that were already modified three years prior to the investigation. TikTok stated that it had made changes, such as setting all accounts of users under 16 to private by default, well before the investigation was initiated.
