June 25, 2024
TikTok’s got another big problem with the federal government besides the upcoming ban.
The federal trade commission also has beef with the platform. And wants the justice department to investigate and possibly sue TikTok for failing to protect the privacy of kids online.
Ok – this whole thing centers around the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act which was signed into law in 1998 and went into effect in the year 2000. That law protects the privacy of children under the age of 13 online by doing several things including making it mandatory for any commercial website or online service to request parental consent for the collection or use of any personal information of the underage user. The whole idea was to prevent these online marketers and companies from collecting personal data from kids and increasing parental involvement in the activities of their kids online.
Now – to what’s happening. Before TikTok was TikTok – it was Musical.ly. Lots of you remember those days. The FTC says back then in 2019, Musical.ly violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by not requiring parental consent for its youngest users. Musical.ly paid a multimillion dollar fine and there was a settlement between Musical.ly and the FTC. One of the provisions of that settlement was a regular compliance review. When TikTok bought Musical.ly – they also inherited this settlement. Well fast forward to June of this year – the FTC is now saying through that compliance review they have “uncovered reason to believe named defendants [TikTok and Bytedance] are violating or are about to violate the law.” They gave no description of what violations they’re talking about and did not provide any evidence of violation.
In response to this move TikTok released a statement saying they don’t know where this is coming from. They’ve been working with the FTC for more than a year to address its concerns on this very issue and say the accusations against the platform are just wrong. TikTok said…
“We strongly disagree with the FTC’s allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed. We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect children and we will continue to update and improve our product. We offer an age-appropriate experience with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16.”
The Department of Justice has until early august to decide whether or not to pursue a legal case against TikTok.
Read the notice from the FTC here.
