Coalition demands FTC crack down on TikTok’s ‘abuse’ of children

By WND Staff

 

A coalition of privacy, education and parental organizations is asking the Federal Trade Commission to take punitive action against the Chinese-owned TikTok video-sharing app.

TikTok has broken its promises to destroy all personal information collected from users under age 13 and to check the age of new customers, contends a complaint from the coalition, led by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Children.

The organization was joined by the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Reports, Defending the Early Years, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Public Citizen, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, United Church of Christ and others.

The complaint explains TikTok, which paid a huge fine a few years ago for not knowing the age of children who use its services, had agreed to better protect children.

But it still is “ensnaring perhaps millions of underage children in its marketing apparatus, and putting children at risk of sexual predation,” according to a statement from Josh Grolin, the head of CCFC.

“Now, even after being caught red-handed by the FTC, TikTok continues to flout the law.”

The popular app has nearly 800 million monthly users.

However, one year ago, regulators issued a fine of $5.7 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

The investigation was settled when the company said it would delete videos from users it knew were younger than 13 and remove any videos from users whose ages were unknown.

But that, apparently, never happened.

Critics explain TikTok has not scrubbed those videos, nor has it begun obtaining parental permission before taking a child’s information, as it also promised.

The complaint states the problems trace back to the predecessor company, called Musical.ly.

EPIC said the complaint seeks an investigation and penalties for TikTok.

The action needs to be taken promptly because it is so widely used by children, the complaint explains.

The groups noted that contrary to the consent decree under which it is supposed to operate, TikTok “does not at any point contact the child’s parents to give them notice and does not even ask for contact information for a child’s parents.”

That means the company has “no means of obtaining verifiable parental consent before any collection, use, or disclosure of children’s personal information.”

While it does allow “younger users accounts” with limited functionality, a child has only to re-register and list another age to get around the limits.

“For children using regular TikTok accounts, TikTok collects vast amounts of personal information including videos, usage history, the content of messages sent on the platform, and geolocation. It shares this information with third parties.”

Reports repeatedly have noted the youth of users, including many pre-teens, and “one father reported that he ‘deleted [it] from his 10-year-old daughter’s iPad after watching a streaming video in which a young girl was bombarded with sexual requests (comments and emojis scroll across the screen during a live stream).”

In another case, a 24-year-old man posing as a child used Musical.ly to communicate with a 9-year-old girl and ask her to send nude pictures.

The privacy organizations said, “We found TikTok accounts with substantial followings featuring children as young as four years old.”

The U.S. military has banned members from using the application.

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