Summary
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a lawsuit againstTikTok, accusing it of illegally collecting data on millions of children. This lawsuit aims to stopTikTok’salleged mass-scale invasion of children’s privacy. The DOJ claims that TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by allowing children to create accounts without parental consent and not deleting their information when requested. TikTok’s spokesperson rejected the allegations by claiming that these violations had already been addressed.
TikTok faces fines of up to $51,744 for each COPPA violation, and it’s already contesting other proposed nationwide bans. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that couldban TikTok in the United Statesdue to its ties to the Chinese company ByteDance, further complicating its position in the US market. TikTok filed a lawsuit against the US government in a related development, stating that Congress is singling it out to get it banned.
The COPPA Rule requires TikTok to prove it does not target children as its primary audience. TikTok meets this rule by asking users for their birth dates when signing up. However, the DOJ has pointed to the ineffectiveness of TikTok’s age verification process, as children can easily bypass it with false dates. According to the DOJ, TikTok intentionally collected data from these underage users and failed to delete their information, even in instances where the users had identified themselves as children. The “Kids Mode” feature on TikTok, which intends to provide a safer environment for children, has also been criticized for collecting persistent identifiers from users without notifying parents, which is another COPPA violation.
TikTok’s Legal Troubles
This isn’t the first time TikTok has faced privacy lawsuits. Earlier this year, 5000 parents sued the platform for its alleged effects on their children. The lawsuit went to the extent of alleging thatTikTok’s algorithm is an addictive drug that exposes childrento sexual, violent, and suicidal content. US politicians led by Senator Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley also introduced bills to ban the infamous platform on government devices and extend the ban to individual citizens in separate instances. Last year, Montana became the first state in the United States to ban TikTok from its jurisdiction entirely.
TikTok’s infamous but highly effective algorithms are known to keep users engaged for extended periods by leading users down a “rabbit hole,” where viewing one video triggers an avalanche of similar content. This risks exposing young or immature audiences to potentially harmful content. However, legal troubles have not impacted TikTok’s popularity in the younger age groups and its efforts to maintain it. In an unprecedented move, TikTok recently addedtext posts that aim to compete with Twitterto its features. This aims to attract users seeking alternatives to Twitter, another major social platform dealing with controversies.
In an earlier response,TikTok’s spokesperson equated a ban on its operations to a ban on American free speech and cultural expression. However, TikTok’s increasing legal scrutiny highlights a failure to balance user privacy with freedom of expression and business interests. This lawsuit’s success could set a precedent for how social media companies handle kids' data and privacy rules and force the tech industry to rethink data collection to avoid similar legal issues at a broader level.
