A lawsuit was filed by the United States Justice Department last Friday, August 2, for serious privacy violations involving children under the age of 13.
This case legally calls-out TikTok, a Chinese-owned short-video Platform, and its parent company, ByteDance, for their failure to protect young users.
Actions taken by the government and the administration have cited violations under the 2019 agreement and court order regarding the illegal collection of data and the making of accounts without parents’ consent or knowledge.
TikTok and ByteDance failed to comply with the measurements under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Even though “Kids Mode” is being offered to users under 13 in the said social media application, it still falls short of strongly barricading these demographics to infiltrate the regular streaming environment of adults.
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A precedent record demonstrating charges in Europe for violating a similar policy, along with TikTok’s prior accusations and violations of young people’s privacy protection, may support the argument for the app to be banned in the United States.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began investigating earlier this year for other possible violations of TikTok under COPPA.
Despite the hurdles TikTok is facing, Michael Hughes, TikTok’s spokesman, pushed back on the allegations; “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,”.
He added, “We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”.
