The European Commission is opening proceedings against the online platform Tiktok. It should be checked whether Tiktok is doing enough to prevent the spread of illegal content and whether it has violated EU rules when it comes to protecting minors, as the EU Commission announced on Monday. The video platform is suspected of not fulfilling its obligations to protect minors, as the responsible EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on Monday in the online service X.
“As a platform that reaches millions of children and young people, TikTok has a special role to play in protecting minors online,” he also emphasized in a document that the Reuters news agency was able to view on Monday.
The investigations are based on the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes strict rules on particularly large Internet platforms. Last fall, the EU formally launched an investigation into the short message service X, formerly known as Twitter, because it was not taking consistent enough action against misinformation. Meta, the mother of Facebook and Instagram, received a reprimand at the time for similar reasons.
The DSA is intended to force online companies to ban hate and hate speech as well as other illegal content from the Internet. Manipulative practices that pressure users to make purchases will be banned, as will advertising aimed at children.
It is the second time that the EU Commission has applied the law. In December she opened proceedings against the online service X for spreading false information.
The case against Tiktok also concerns the transparency of advertising, researchers’ access to the platform’s data and the measures to protect users from addiction and harmful content. The EU Commission wants to clarify in particular whether Tiktok’s algorithm can lead to addiction.
The possible effect of Tiktok videos on radicalization processes is also the subject of the proceedings. The Commission also wants to examine whether and how the platform ensures that minors are “effectively” protected from inappropriate content.
According to its own information, Tiktok had almost 136 million active users per month last April. The video platform is extremely popular, especially among young people.
