The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and 17 of its member organisations filed, on Tuesday 16 February, a complaint against TikTok with the European Commission and the network of consumer protection authorities for unfair commercial practices, failure to protect children and violation of their rights under EU law.
Based on the results of a new study, BEUC claims that the Chinese platform is guilty of multiple breaches of EU consumer rights and fails to protect children from hidden advertising and inappropriate content.
The European organisation and its members are urging the Commission and national authorities to investigate the practices of TikTok, a video sharing platform extremely popular with teenagers and children. They want it to rapidly become a secure environment.
In particular, the following are pointed out: - the fact that TikTok does not protect children and adolescents from hidden advertising and potentially harmful content; - the virtual gifts policy which contains unfair terms and misleading practices, such as TikTok’s absolute right to modify the exchange rate between the coins and these gifts; - TikTok’s practices regarding the processing of users’ personal data, which are misleading and in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To consult the study: https://bit.ly/3jQtmzw (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)