TikTok is a media app from China used to or create and share short videos. The company called ByteDance. The media app was launched as Douyin in China in September 2016 and then became world wide one year later. It attracts users from a wide age range, especially young people and even children. 

In Feb. 27th, TikTok fined 5.7 million dollars because of the charge of “illegally collected images, voice recordings, and geolocation” of children under 13 years old. This was regarded as “the largest civil penalty ever issued by the agency in a child privacy case.”The company sometimes refused to delete children’s information even complained by children’s parents and still remained the videos after deleting the children’s ID. Moreover, it also encouraged children to engage in sexual activity online. Since TikTok was making profit by damaging children, the FTC complaint accused the company of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.  

In the aspect of commercial law, TikTok went against the policies of consumer and users’ privacy. In terms of protecting children, the Supreme court also have limitation and filter of  obscene speech and pornographic materials. So allowing those material to be spreaded is not only responsible to the society and needs to be changed by the law. Since many children don’t have the awareness of protecting themselves from the potential danger, many groups can easily use the information for their own profits. 

Tis case is really important to operating a business since when we provide a platform on social media, we really have to think about the safety and privacy to protect users and consumers, thinking about whether the media will be illegally used and taking action to protect the users, prior to how much profit it can earn. Once some issues break the law, that will be the loss and danger of both users and operators. 

What’s a good news is that after this case, TikTok now realizes the importance of privacy and safety of users, especially children and is making changes to make the usage of  the app by children safer, following the requirements of  FTC. The users’ personal information will not allowed to be shared and interaction between users will have more limitation. 

The original news: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-pay-5-7-million-over-alleged-violation-child-privacy-n977186