TikTok on EU's Hit List for Opaque Advertising: A Briefly Delineated Preliminary Assessment
EU Commission Scrutinizes TikTok's Advertising Practices - Opaque Advertising: EU Commission Scrutinizes TikTok Ad Practices
Let's dive in, shall we?
TikTok, the popular Chinese social media platform, is under fire for allegedly shunning EU digital regulations, specifically in terms of advertising transparency. In a nutshell, the European Commission claims TikTok isn't spilling the beans on ad content, potentially inviting hefty fines.
According to the European Commission, the Digital Services Act (DSA) demands that online platforms establish a comprehensive ad repository. Why, you ask? This repository serves as a goldmine for researchers and civil society, helping them to uncover deceitful advertising, hybrid threats, coordinated campaigns, and false ads.
The commission criticizes TikTok for not maintaining an ad registry and for its subpar ad archive that restricts extensive public search, making it less than ideal.
However, TikTok begs to differ: "We back the objectives of the regulation and continue to fine-tune our ad transparency tools. Yet, we find the commission's interpretations slightly off the mark, and we view the guidelines more as tentative findings than unambiguous, public guidelines," a spokesperson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The company intends to scrutinize the commission's tentative findings on the ad archive and maintain open dialogues.
Penalty of up to six percent of annual turnover
Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen emphasizes the importance of revealing the origin and target audience of online ads to protect public interest. "We're all about defending the integrity of our democratic elections, preserving public health, and shielding consumers from fraudulent advertising—and citizens should know the source behind the ads they see," she expressed.
The aforesaid accusations were directed at TikTok, owned by Chinese-based Bytedance, which has been given notice of the preliminary results and faces a potential fine of up to six percent of its global annual turnover, as stated by the commission.
The preliminary findings result from an investigation that involves scrutiny of internal company documents, testing of TikTok tools, and collaboration with field experts.
A History of Controversies
Last year, the Commission initiated investigations against TikTok concerning the first round of presidential elections in Romania. The platform was accused of failing to label content from the pro-Russian and far-right candidate Calin Georgescu as political advertising. The Romanian court ultimately invalidated the election due to suspected Russian election interference and financial irregularities.
The commission also chases US platforms in this regard. An array of procedures is ongoing against the platform of Elon Musk's X due to presumed DSA violations. The law aims to ensure consistent action against hate speech. The DSA investigations in Brussels also ensnare the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta.
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- The European Commission's preliminary assessment indicates that TikTok, a Chinese social media platform, could be subjected to fines for not complying with EU digital regulations, particularly with regards to the transparency of advertising content, which is a key requirement under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
- The DSA mandates online platforms like TikTok to maintain a comprehensive ad repository, facilitating the monitoring of deceptive advertising, hybrid threats, coordinated campaigns, and false ads by researchers and civil society.
- As per the European Commission, TikTok is criticized for its lack of an ad registry and its subpar ad archive that limits extensive public search, potentially violating the DSA and inviting significant fines, amounting to six percent of its global annual turnover.
