Chinese social media company TikTok is likely to be subject to tougher EU rules on online content as its number of active users exceeds a threshold set in the Digital Services Act (DSA), a senior executive at the company said on Wednesday.
In the case of very large online platforms, the groundbreaking rules are more stringent and characterize them as companies with more than 45 million users.
Requirements for such companies include risk management commitments, external and independent audits, sharing of data with regulators and researchers, and adoption of a code of conduct.
Violations can result in fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s worldwide revenue.
Online platforms and search engines are due to report their user numbers on February 17 so that the European Commission can identify the very large online platforms and the very large online search engines.
“We expect our EU user base will meet the quantitative criteria to be considered a very large online platform, but are awaiting the designation process foreseen by the DSA to understand if we are classified as such” , Caroline Greer, director of public policy and government relations, told Reuters.
2020, tick tock said that the number of users in Europe exceeded 100 million.
A few days ago, Democratic US Senator Michael Bennet called that TikTok should be removed from the app stores operated by Apple And alphabet‘S Google as it poses a risk to national security. The app has already been blocked by federal government devices. In the US, TikTok is under intense scrutiny over fears the Chinese government could use it to collect data on Americans or advance Chinese interests.
Prior to Bennet’s letter, Republicans largely cited the impeachment against TikTok and national security concerns.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
