By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
The US government has filed a fresh lawsuit against TikTok alleging the social media giant unlawfully collected data from children and ignored parental requests to delete their children's accounts. According to the Department of Justice, the Chinese short video app engaged in "massive scale" invasion of child privacy by breaching laws requiring online companies to get parental consent to collect information from users under 13.
The DOJ labeled TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, as "repeat offenders," referencing a case in 2019. The lawsuit further accused TikTok of having a weak mechanism for removing accounts belonging to children below the age of thirteen and that the company purposely makes it difficult for parents to delete their children's accounts from the app. In fact, an investigation involving approximately 1,700 parental requests from 2019-2020 discovered that up to 30% of those accounts were still active by November 2021.
The platform has since rubbished these, arguing that a lot of the accusations were about old practices which are now resolved. Indeed, a spokesperson of the organization showed that TikTok had already been very proactive in child safety by removing underage users from the platform, adding default screen-time limits, and other additional privacy protections for minors.
"We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed," said the spokesperson. "We're proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will keep working to update and improve the platform."
The lawsuit heaps further pressure on TikTok and ByteDance, which are already fighting a US law that might prohibit the firm from operating within the country. The officials asked for the court to halt actions of TikTok and also for a civil penalty for every violation.
"This lawsuit is necessary to ensure that defendants, who are repeat offenders and operate at a massive scale, do not continue to collect and use young children's private information without parents' consent or control," said Brian Boynton, principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the DOJ's Civil Division.
TikTok is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, having more than 1 billion users globally, where over 170 million are from the US. Surveys conducted by Pew Research indicate that more than 60% of US teens aged 13 to 17 are on TikTok, and over half use it every day.
The lawsuit demands an end to what is described by the US government as TikTok's "unlawful massive scale invasions of children's privacy."
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