Due to its inability to regulate the dissemination of information that it said endangered the safety of children and other vulnerable individuals, Italy's competition authorities penalized TikTok €10 million ($11 million).
China's ByteDance owns TikTok, a social media site that caters to teenagers, has unique weaknesses that the antitrust watchdog AGCM claimed it overlooked on Thursday. These vulnerabilities include the adolescent users' propensity to mimic group behaviors.
In March of last year, the watchdog said that it was looking into TikTok's content filtering policies.
The video-sharing website posted a statement on Thursday claiming that it "has not taken adequate measures to avoid the spread of (harmful) content," and that users might "systematically re-propose" such content to them due to the platform's algorithms.
The "French scar" fad on TikTok, in which users pin their own cheeks to create a permanent bruise, is one instance of dangerous material that the AGCM cited.
A representative for TikTok told CNN that the company did not agree with the AGCM's ruling. Before the AGCM's notification last year, the so-called "French scar" material in Italy averaged barely 100 daily searches. We long since banned accessibility of this stuff to (under-18s)."
China's ByteDance owns TikTok, a social media site that caters to teenagers, has unique weaknesses that the antitrust watchdog AGCM claimed it overlooked on Thursday. These vulnerabilities include the adolescent users' propensity to mimic group behaviors.
In March of last year, the watchdog said that it was looking into TikTok's content filtering policies.
The video-sharing website posted a statement on Thursday claiming that it "has not taken adequate measures to avoid the spread of (harmful) content," and that users might "systematically re-propose" such content to them due to the platform's algorithms.
The "French scar" fad on TikTok, in which users pin their own cheeks to create a permanent bruise, is one instance of dangerous material that the AGCM cited.
A representative for TikTok told CNN that the company did not agree with the AGCM's ruling. Before the AGCM's notification last year, the so-called "French scar" material in Italy averaged barely 100 daily searches. We long since banned accessibility of this stuff to (under-18s)."
