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TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts
- jtode 3y ago[flagged]
- yladiz 3y agoWhat?
- ekabod 3y agoWrong thread or too much wisdom.
- sassy_quat 3y ago[dead]
- jtode 3y agoEh, I'm getting a bit too close to 1000 points for comfort. I hear you implode or something.
- corbezzoli 3y agoThat's quite a fine for a single-country ruling, it's like 2.6% of a year of revenue — or 10 days.
- hjnilsson 3y agoThe fine is for the entire EU, it was only handled by the Irish authority because TikTok headquarters are there.
- hnbad 3y agoThe article says the Irish agency is enforcing this for the entire EU. I think this is called the "one stop shop" solution which a lot of large foreign companies and Twitter use to avoid being fined by each member state individually. It also involves some closer oversight I think. I'm explicitly saying Twitter not X Corp because Musk in his infamous wisdom fired everyone at Twitter Ireland who was involved in ensuring they remained compliant. I think part of the requirement was also that every feature launch is run past the Ireland team to make sure it doesn't violeate EU data laws. Musk has not done that for any of the changes he introduced since the leveraged buyout.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- _visgean 3y agoWhy should we? We have rules in place and tiktok broke them -> they get fined. Nothing insane here.
- personomas 3y agoUnbelievable fines, that's the problem in this one case.
- hef19898 3y agoThe EU should go further: ban TikTok. And regulate social media to death.
- 3np 3y agoWhoa now, slow down there. Ban some of what TikTok's doing and enforce it fairly? Sure. But let's not actually get more authoritarian here.
- justinclift 3y agoBearing in mind that TikTok is itself banned in China. ;)
- vajrabum 3y agoThat's not exactly true. China has a firewall which restricts access to the internet at large so you can't use Tiktok or Instagram for that matter in China. Tiktok and Douyin (Tiktok in China) are essentially the same app. Douyin has more features and of course since it's in China, more content control.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
- emptyfile 3y ago[dead]
- _chu1 3y agoOh no they'll never make that back
- malermeister 3y agoIf the fine wasn't high enough to disincentivize, it just means we'll have to set the next one higher until we find a point where it works.
- Filligree 3y agoI’ve noticed Americans tend to think of laws in terms of… computer code, almost, which isn’t true even for America. But in that view, the fine is whatever size it is and if it isn’t enough, too bad. …that isn’t how Europe works.
- NegativeK 3y agoAmerican nerds tend to think of laws as computer code, which is an oversimplification of a field that we don't understand (but arrogantly thing we do.)
- mchanson 3y agoThis is pretty interesting time with the social media / data companies. Will this be the new normal? Where, like clock work, another fine gets announced? Or will we transition through this period into one where they know how to, and also do, comply and the regulations don't change a ton?
- ta1243 3y agoThey know how to comply, but that would hurt their bottom line.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- mtmail 3y ago> we made changes to well before the investigation even began Tiktok was not compliant before 2021. Being compliant in 2022 doesn't magically end an investigation or sentence.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- mschild 3y agoGDPR doesn't go far enough and I think courts need to hand out significantly more fines. Yes, that fine is a lot. It's supposed to be high. That's the only way that fines work. If it doesn't hurt a company's bottom line, they don't learn.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- spandextwins 3y agoWhere does the money go?
- mtmail 3y agoInto the EU budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rjzzleep 3y ago[flagged]
- lakomen 3y agoI'd like to know that as well. Where do all those fines go?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- PeterisP 3y agoGeneral government budget.
- inamorty 3y agoThe country issuing the fine. Previously for Meta it was Ireland and Amazon it was Luxembourg.
- ipaddr 3y agoIn this case Ireland will collect but this is on behalf of the entire EU. Where does it go after?
- 3y ago
- bsaul 3y agoi'm starting to feel like the EU found a business model to compensate for the fiscal tricks large companies are doing to avoid paying taxes. My only hope is that those laws won't prevent a new major high tech company to appear in the EU.
- kibwen 3y agoIf respecting privacy prevents tech companies from forming, then we should all be celebrating when those tech companies fail to form.
- kmlx 3y agothis is a naive take. companies will still be formed. they will just http 451 all EU users. like threads does right now. this will also mean losing out, but i guess europeans are used to losing out, and actually prefer it?
- esarbe 3y agoSure I'd prefer that. I don't need those companies. I wouldn't phrase it as "losing out" though. I would put it as "not being in the crosshairs of endless streams of manipulative content whose only purpose it to induce a demand for low-quality consumerism products whose entire existence is a burden for our planet." Those with FOMO can still use VPNs and pretend to be US citizens.
- Barrin92 3y ago> but i guess europeans are used to losing out, and actually prefer it? losing out on companies that are detrimental to our social fabric, democracy, and psychological health of children is a good thing. Mistaking company values on a stock market for population health is the human equivalent of acting like a paperclip AI
- logicchains 3y ago[flagged]
- lakomen 3y agoI was wondering, I've recently picked up Tiktok and on the live streams, despite it saying that you need 1000 followers and be 18 years old, I saw so many kids, live streaming. I was wondering why they didn't enforce their own rules. I'm guessing, too large amount of streamers, but even if you had only one dedicated person, you'd certainly find enough teens or children live streaming. So this is quite the timely ruling. However why would people between 13 and 18 be prohibited from streaming? If you say "the lurking perverts", that argument doesn't work for chat control, so why should it work here? It's a moot point. Sexual content is not allowed on Tiktok. You can see women in bikinis, but you can see them, even topless, in real life on public beaches too. So what other reason would there be?
- jncfhnb 3y agoIn one case you’re seeing a topless woman on the beach In the other case you have anonymous strangers rewarding children for edging closer to sexual performances
- martin_a 3y agoYouTube Shorts are also full of underage kids talking about their life, dancing and whatnot. Does not feel right to me, but I guess it is for YouTube.
- 5045444f 3y agoInstagram reels are even worse in this regard. Really, TikTok seems to actually be doing the best to keep kids safe in this space, despite constant criticism to the contrary.
- pjc50 3y ago> why would people between 13 and 18 be prohibited from streaming? The parasocial relationship with an audience, especially a large one, does weird things even to adults.
- deleted 3y ago
- bman_kg 3y agoWill that fine impact tiktok or there wont be any change? If tiktok wont change its practice, then it should be fined again within set period/deadline
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoAs I understand it, Tiktok changed their practices a few years ago. This fine is just for what their practices were before that, and the prosecution just took a few years to resolve.
- orwin 3y agoThey changed their practice in 2021, after 3 years. The fine is for the 2018-2021 infraction over all of the EU.
- hwillis 3y ago> TikTok said the investigation looked at the company’s privacy setup between 31 July and 31 December 2020 and said it had addressed the problems raised by the inquiry. All existing and new TikTok accounts for 13- to 15-year-olds have been set to private – meaning only people approved by the user can view their content – by default since 2021.
- boringg 3y agoDrop in the bucket. Meaningless if anything a way for the EU regulators to wave the flag that they are maybe doing something but not so much as to take on TikTok
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoIt may be, but they did fix the problem. They're lucky it's just a fine instead of an all-out ban.
- aldarisbm 3y agothis isn't a drop in the bucket... 1-5 million is ... almost 0.5B$ is not quite a drop in the bucket...
- layer8 3y agoFines do increase in case of continued noncompliance.
- cbg0 3y agoThe point of a fine is to discourage bad behavior, not to financially ruin a company.
- boringg 3y agoOk Mea Culpa - it was a hot take as the number seemed pretty low. Still feels relatively low but probably should be taken as a warning shot. $367M USD (If that's the final cost to Tik Tok) vs their $11B revenue for 2022 - is a noticeable hit for the company.
- endisneigh 3y agoseems dumb. there's nothing stopping a child from lying about their age anyways. how about parents who care about such things just block the TikTok app for their children? if TikTok simply had an age selection box, and if you choose anything under 18 it said "too bad. wait until you're 18", I'm sure all of those children would say, "gee darn it, guess I'll wait" :eyeroll. This sort of nonsense is why government's are trying to enforce age verification because god forbid your children go on a website or app. at the end of the day these fines exist because it's easy money for the EU - there's really no way of stopping children from using TikTok, or any social media for that matter but the EU knows that so they fine the companies and keep the gravy train going.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cbg0 3y ago>at the end of the day these fines exist because it's easy money for the EU - there's really no way of stopping children from using TikTok, or any social media for that matter but the EU knows that so they fine the companies and keep the gravy train going. Actually, the fines exist to make sure laws are respected. Also, the issue wasn't about users lying about their age, it was about underage users signing up for an account and having access to all content, instead of only child-safe content, as other platforms do.
- endisneigh 3y agoMy point is that there's nothing stopping children from having access to all content to begin with because there's nothing stopping children from signing up as an adult. The correct thing for the EU to do if they actually cared about this is to enforce true validation of ages on social media. This is exactly what's being proposed in the United States, with a 3rd party verification service being required for all social media to actually verify ages. The law in its current form, both in the EU or United States, is pointless and trivially circumvented. Charging a third of a billion for something like this is so laughable.
- darthrupert 3y agoIs EU the only significant power on this planet that isn't ... for a lack of better word, evil?
- pteraspidomorph 3y agoWe have our own issues, including voter apathy, political corruption, unsustainable economic policies, extreme inefficiency and the occasional batshit crazy tech laws being pushed by politicians who probably never touched a device with more than two transistors. But I still love it here.
- dahfizz 3y agoI would say least evil significant power... I believe their intentions are mostly good but that kind of paternalism in such a powerful entity can be a kind of evil. The EUs fight against encryption is a good example
- DiogenesKynikos 3y agoThe EU's behavior during the Greek debt crisis was pretty evil. Imagine if a US state were in serious debt, and the US federal response were to slash Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits to the state. The EU view was that Greece should get out of debt by massively slashing government spending, including on virtually all social services, which sent the country spiralling into a Great-Depression-level economic collapse. That made repaying the debt even more difficult, which necessitated even deeper cuts, which made the economy collapse even further, and so on for years. Greece endured years of 20+% unemployment, and GDP/capita has fallen to the level it was 20 years ago.
- darthrupert 3y agoGiven how all sides of that debacle seem to be really unhappy on how it went, it sounds like a pretty decent compromise.
- pjc50 3y agoIt's interesting that post-New Deal US is much more redistributive between the states than the EU has yet managed to achieve. Probably due to not having any direct taxation power of its own either. EU "fiscal discipline" combined with bank bailouts looks so harmful in retrospect.
- InTheArena 3y agoThis is a good start, but I'm going to be very curious to see if EU data law ever starts getting enforced against european companies at scale, as opposed to international companies.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoIt does get enforced against European companies, they just don't make HN headlines because they're not big-tech so nobody here would have heard of them. Also EU companies tend to be more mindful and take data protection very seriously, even before GDPR was a thing, so finding gross offenders is a rare occurrence anyway.
- personomas 3y agoWhich ones?
- _puk 3y agohttps://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ Ironically, currently 2023 entries.
- personomas 3y ago[flagged]
- hef19898 3y agoHeadquarted countries founded in the EU? Please, tell me more, I always wanted my own nationstate!
- personomas 3y agoObviously I meant to write "companies" not countries. (fixed.)
- deleted 3y ago
- meghan_rain 3y agoAt what point will armchair CEOs stop with the "lmao x is just a blip in y's revenue"? Do you think 345M grow on trees?
- vorticalbox 3y agoThey are expected to have $13.2 billion this year.
- karaterobot 3y agoI think that number is their revenue rather than their profit, which is probably closer to $3 billion. So, this fine would be (very roughly) 10% of their profits for the year.
- c-hendricks 3y agoFines against companies should be revenue based instead of profit based. Companies have too much wiggle room from revenue to profit.
- karaterobot 3y agoI think they should be based on guidelines that take into consideration the damage the company did, irrespective of the amount of money they make or have in the bank. That's how it works for the likes of you and me.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y agoNot in Finland.
- karaterobot 3y agoDoes this comment in any material way relate to either my comment or the comment to which I was responding? I'd love to know more about how it works in Finland, but I can't figure out why you left this message.
- DarkmSparks 3y agoSomehow doubt they will actually pay a penny of it though.
- cbg0 3y agoWhy would you doubt it? Unless tiktok wins in court, the EU could remove them from all the app stores if they don't pay up.
- Filligree 3y agoTikTok also has accounts and real estate in the EU, which can be seized. It’s not a good idea to play chicken with a continent.
- DarkmSparks 3y agothey moved everything to London in 2020. Bytedance are already under US and EU sanctions.
- mym1990 3y agoAny breaking of the law in regards to children needs to absolutely incinerate the offending party, this fine seems like a drop in the bucket. Kids these days are bombarded by terrible industry practices because companies know if they can get a child hooked, they could be a customer for life(or at least a period of time in their adulthood). In the US, kids are advertised to at literally every corner of their life...in their apps, when they go to school, TV, etc...it is actually WILD that this kind of stuff is legal.
- SeanAnderson 3y agoWhat sort of fine would you consider not to be a drop in the bucket? This fine looks to be an estimated 1/8 of TikTok's profit in 2022.
- yumraj 3y ago25% of Annual Revenue and firing of all CxOs (CEO, COO, CTO etc)
- bragr 3y agoThey'll just write bigger golden parachutes into their contacts to offset the risk. That or suddenly everyone is an EVP and the C levels all are just paid fall guys. But 25% revenue might work.
- yumraj 3y agoWell add a 3 strikes law [0], after all corporations are supposed to be person, from a legal standpoint. 3 strikes, and the company is dissolved. In fact, this should definitely happen for US credit rating companies which keep on leaking data. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law
- DSingularity 3y agoThis is an EXCELLENT proposal. They would fight just as hard to ensure they never receive the second strike to avoid the forever-doom that will loom over investors.
- rvz 3y agoThis is a good start as a starting fine as I said and have been calling for instead of a ban. Increase the fines into the billions of dollars if they repeatedly continue to violate the privacy of their users. This has happened with Facebook before. There is no defense in large compaines getting away with this and all social media companies with over hundreds of millions of users that violate their users privacy should be fined, as found with TikTok. No more exceptions or excuses. So that concludes that TikTok is no different to Meta when they screw over their own users privacy.
- black_puppydog 3y agoI'm not sure what to think. I can't read anything about Max Schrems and his team forcing them to enforce the law... Curious, for Ireland. So either they've woken up to the same reality the rest of us inhabit, or their inhibition to do their job doesn't apply to Chinese companies...
- gdprwhat 3y ago> It also found that the “family pairing” scheme, which gives an adult control over a child’s account settings, did not check whether the adult “paired” with the child user was a parent or guardian. How exactly are TikTok meant to be verify parents? Are other tech companies expected to verify parents? It seems like no one else is being fined for this?
- outside1234 3y agoThis is just the EU finding a way to extract money from them
- hwillis 3y agoInstagram was just fined even more for the same thing. https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/05/instagram-gdpr-fine-childrens-privacy/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/05/instagram-gdpr-fine-childr...
- gdprwhat 3y ago1. How do regulators expect tech companies to verify the real age of users (without further intrusions of privacy)? 2. How do the regulators expect tech companies to verify the parents of child users? 3. Do regulators want tech companies to collect every child's birth certificate?
- esotericimpl 3y ago1. How do regulators expect Airlines to verify the real age of users (without further intrusions of privacy)? 2. How do the regulators expect Airline companies to verify the parents of child users? 3. Do regulators want airlines to collect every child's birth certificate? See how silly this sounds when you compare to any other industry? Oh but tech is different!
- TeMPOraL 3y agoIndeed. I mean, on the one hand, all that tech is indeed different - but on the other hand, it's not the law of physics that it has to exist in a form that makes compliance difficult. A service not existing, or existing in a vastly different form, are options too - options the tech industry doesn't want to talk about. And FWIW, it's third-generation mobile-first social media platforms we're talking about. It's hard to make a case they're not a huge net negative for society. In any other thread, people would happily agree they shouldn't exist in the current form in the first place.
- mkl95 3y agoSweet. But as long as the EU doesn't have a big company in the social media market, the Asia/US giants will get away with it.
- TheHappyOddish 3y agoThey're not "getting away with it" though? They're being fined a large sum of money.
- RobKohr 3y agoI am really curious as to what happens when one of these big companies just says nope to the fine. Will they be blocked from the EU? Is there some international way that they can get a US or Chinese company to pay up?
- xchip 3y agoHow much are they paying per kid?
- toasted-subs 3y agoSeems like not a lot money in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn't have minded a relatively hefty fine, but maybe I don't know all the details...
- berniedurfee 3y agoI agree. At their scale, that fine is a ‘cost of doing business’ tax. It also seems likely that number will be litigated down to something much smaller by the time the legal dust settles.
- swader999 3y agoIn addition to fines, put them in a penalty box for x months. No operation in an jurisdiction for a period of time.
- Footnote7341 3y agoWe're going to have state I.D to use any popular website alongside remote attestation and you guys are cheering us along the path there with cases like this
- parl_match 3y agoAt this point, maybe we should reduce anonymization? We've had this idea since the 90s that an anonymous internet with signal amplification is a net good, but that's been turning out to be less and less true. If you want to self publish anonymously, you are not entitled to use of one of the big 5 platforms. Maybe this causes fragmentation of large platforms, that'd also be a net good imo.
- mpalmer 3y agoYou can't really conclude that de-anonymization is good just by asserting that the status quo is bad. One has to make the positive case for de-anonymization on privately owned platforms. What are the trade-offs? Society certainly didn't anticipate a lot of the drawbacks of anonymous presence.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoWhy do we automatically assume that anonymization is good? Where are the anonymous town squares?
- mpalmer 3y agoI dunno, I was pretty careful not to assume that in my comment. The town square metaphor is really not a great one for the internet. You don't run nearly as high a risk of getting doxxed or swatted for speaking your mind in a physical public place. And if the unspoken suggestion is that anonymous doxxing would be impossible or too costly/risky in a hypothetical de-anonymized world, I'd call BS. Even if it worked, that would require some kind of "panopticon internet". Sounds bad...
- throwaway5959 3y agoAh looks like the EU is going to start taxing China as well.