EC accused TikTok of violating child safety rules

The European Commission has charged the ByteDance-owned TikTok social network with violating European Union technological standards related to the online safety of children. This was reported by the Reuters news agency on July 24.

"Teen TikTok accounts are equipped with more than 50 preset privacy and security settings, developed with the participation of experts," the company said.

According to the regulator, the design features of the platform may expose children to the risk of contact with intruders or cyberbullying. This puts the company at risk of a large fine.

The preliminary conclusions were made within the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which obliges large technology companies to actively combat illegal and malicious content. This is the fourth such accusation against TikTok in two years.

The European Commission noted that TikTok account settings do not comply with DSA security standards. The platform allows children to make their accounts public, which opens the content to outsiders. At the same time, even private accounts are not sufficiently protected — they are easy to find through lists of subscribers and subscriptions of other users, and even people who do not have their own TikTok account can do this.

The regulator demanded that the company change the default settings for public accounts of minors so that the content is visible only to users approved by the children themselves.

TikTok said it would study the findings of the European Commission and intend to work constructively with the regulator.

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On July 16, Reuters reported that the British body Ofcom, responsible for supervision and control in the online space, initiated an investigation into the TikTok social network in order to find out whether the administration of the resource violates the rules of age restrictions in the kingdom. At the same time, the owners of the social network deny violating anyone's legislation in advance, noting that they strictly monitor the content's compliance with age standards and restrictions.