TikTok Sets Aside $1 Billion To Cover Future European Data Privacy Fines
www.forbes.com
Bytedance has set aside the ten-figure sum to pay regulatory fines in Europe while facing a barrage of investigations and lawsuits over its handling of young users' data.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3693467

Chinese social media giant Bytedance was dealt a stinging blow last September when Ireland’s data privacy watchdog issued it a record $370 million fine over its failure to properly safeguard the personal data of children using its app TikTok. New corporate filings suggest that Bytedance expects more fines like this to come. The company has explicitly set aside $1 billion to cover future fines from European privacy regulators.

Bytedance has faced a barrage of lawsuits and investigations from regulators around the world over TikTok’s addictive design, handling of user data and lack of safeguards for teenage users. Only yesterday, the attorneys general of thirteen states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits claiming that TikTok was designed to be used compulsively and had harmed children and teens as a result.

The $1 billion provision for future fines was revealed in corporate accounts for TikTok’s European operations filed this week with the United Kingdom’s Companies House. The accounts also showed that TikTok’s European revenues surged to $4.57 billion last year, up from $2.6 billion in 2022. Its losses have also nearly tripled to $1.3 billion in 2023, up from $512 million.

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The scale of total fines and penalties facing TikTok on the European continent could be even larger than the $1 billion provision in its 2023 accounts. The European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) in February 2024. The European Union can fine companies up to 6% of global revenue for breaches of the DSA, or impose a ban.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    313·
    1 month ago

    I’ve a feeling we’re ry going to regret all this anti Chinese nonsense in the future, I think Google etc have already sealed their ultimate fates.

    The Huawei thing might well go down as one of the worst mistakes in history.

    For anyone wondering I’m UK not Chinese completely white from Belfast.

    • MaggiWuerze@feddit.orgEnglish
      71·
      1 month ago

      The only thing we’re going to regret, in fact already are, is sucking up to them for the last decades, while allowing them to steal every bit of manufacturing know how we had for some cheap labor

      • MajorSauce@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21·
        1 month ago

        Economic “principles” pushed manufacturing their way, they just played the game and played it well.