A new “stress test” performed by European Union (EU) Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton and his team confirmed that TikTok doesn’t measure up with current EU rules.
During the test performed at the Dublin offices at TikTok, the social platform it was found the social media platform was not compliant with upcoming European Union rules governing content, according to Bloomberg.
According to a statement from Breton’s office, he and his team verified that progress is required for TikTok to be compliant by the looming deadline of August 25th for the EU Digital Services Act.
“Recent events have shown the impact and effects that TikTok has in people’s lives and democracies,” Breton said.
It is crucial to get this right because of the vast use of TikTok within Europe with over a quarter of Europe’s population, most of them are teenagers, said Breton.
Previously after a video call with TikTok’s chief executive officer in January, Breton had commented that it’s “not acceptable” that platform users can retrieve “harmful and sometimes even life-threatening content” within seconds.
Within the test, the Commissioner and his team investigated areas including child protection, illicit online content, data access, transparency and TikTok’s content recommendation system and moderation.
“If its systems fail, the magnitude of the consequences can be dramatic.”
The new rules not only apply to TikTok but apps like China’s ByteDance Ltd. are among the large internet platforms which must abide by list of moderation rules by next month.
More “stress tests” can be expected with Breton saying it’s now “time to accelerate to be fully compliant. As of the end of August, we will be assessing whether real, tangible changes have materialized on the grounds.”
If businesses fail to comply to the lengthy inventory of moderation rules, they may end up paying large fines or face a complete ban in EU countries.
With over a billion users worldwide, TikTok has an incredible responsibility and remains to face possible bans in its key markets.
