it's a drop in the ocean to companies like Tiktok. If you're gonna fine a huge corporation, especially for something as serious as that, make it hurt! Tiktok is worth between $100-200 Billion!
If Tik Tok failed to protect the data of users in the European Union, where privacy law is stricter than here, and improperly transferred user data to China, why would Americans-- or our government -- trust Tik Tok to protect our own user data?
Why does it seem the European Union does a better job at holding huge companies responsible for privacy violations than our feeble Congress? I think our politicians are lobbied and moneyed into submission. And our electorate is too ignorant. Case in point: the Trump tariffs are taxes on the average citizen to end up as more tax breaks for the wealthy.
Why does the EU allow Ireland to enforce tax & privacy rules when it has been shown over and over again to be under the control of the companies it is supposed to regulate. Maybe Ireland should be forced out of the EU unless it starts taking its responsibilities seriously.
One of the guiding principles in the EU is subsidiarity, so some EU laws can be enforced nationally. This enforcement is audited by the European Commission and it’s true that Ireland is seen to do too much to make their country attractive for multinationals. This isn’t just an ‘Irish’ failing though. I believe the same behaviour can be seen in the US, where states are competing for headquarters. In the EU persuasion is preferred to wielding a big stick, since national governments have a lot of say in how things are run (European Council) and it’s not possible to kick countries out, but the EC can fine countries if they fail to enforce EU laws and ultimately countries can lose voting rights, though the latter is very difficult to achieve. Hungary might just be the first to lose it, but their breaches are much more serious.
Anyone who thinks the Chinese government is not stealing the data and listening to every conversation that Tik Tok users have is kidding themselves. The PRC has one of the best cybersecurity teams in the world, and getting the people of their competitor nations to voluntarily download an app that gives complete access to their phones is the masterstroke of their government. To believe that they would not monitor every activity that they could with this tool is an enormous exercise in self-delusion by those who still have it loaded on their devices.
Bytedance's global revenue last year was $155 billion. A $600 million fine that will take half a decade or more to arbitrate is a rounding error, and will result in no change in behavior or approach.
If Bytedance fails to change their behaviour, the fines can be escalated and other privacy watchdogs and the European Commission can get involved. So far also the bigger multinationals, such as Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Meta have all chosen to cooperate with EU laws rather than to ignore them.
A fine is not sufficient punishment for this kind of illegal behavior. Once your data is out, lives can be ruined. In the aggregate, democracy at risk. The only true deterrent is long jail sentences for the board of directors and executives and anyone in direct or indirect supervision of those who sent the data.
This article serves as a reminder that promises of data privacy, made by a social network company, are almost impossible to verify or enforce.
This article describes a governmental response to the violation of data privacy policies of a large group of people. However, it is virtually impossible for a particular end user to defend themselves in this way, except to avoid the service altogether.
According to the article: "Irish authorities said the Chinese government, under its antiterrorism and anti-espionage laws, could have gained access to those users’ data."
Tic Toc just wants to keep their “ Good Guy” status with the world youth but the US and Europe are rapidly pulling their pants down exposing their foul smelling interior run by the CCP!
Same thing for the US. For the most part, young people vote the least among the age groups. We've all been at the point of being young, idealistic, and naive but the poor fucks can't even see that not angering their whole group, even with the fact they barely vote, is the reason TikTok hasn't been banned yet (or sold, which makes way more sense than a ban because you remove CCP control while keeping the young people "happy")
Older generations will always find a way to complain about the younger ones. Never mind the fact that you're using social media yourself, a chunk of young people have always had dreams of fame and money, through acting or singing or something else. Most young people don't want Tiktok to become a star, just for entertainment, so if you're using your powers to take it away, you might as well provide an alternative
I’m not complaining about the young people. The saddest part of the switch from tv to social media as the dream job is the unpaid labor. People used to move to los angeles (i used to live near hollywood) when they wanted to be in the movies. They’d take a job as an extra and get paid at least minimum wage. Now, the people i know who are trying to do social media… its lots of totally unpaid labor or sub-minimum wage. Social media companies just out to harvest their data without compensating workers.
And trying to ban it results in them actively seeking out Chinese social media like Rednote, much to the regular users' confusion. Shit's in Mandarin for god's sake and they still flooded in.
like young people matter. Most parties aim for the old. And they are not wrong.
Take a 13year old using TikTok. He might still use it at 17. Now at 21 you might lose his vote over banning tiktok(since there are no other problems /s). At 25 he is likely working or studying. Id say any TikTok things you did might be long forgotten. At 29 he has bigger problems.
Anyone still making his one choice of voting, depending on TikTok is just a fool you cant rely on anyhow.
Now take the same 5 elections and argue for a 60 year old. His life doesnt change anymore. He thinks about his pension and his investment portfolio. Thats all he cares about. Thats a stable demographic you can rely on voting for your shitty old party over and over again.
Hardly solves the problem. Neither the influence nor the Data scraping. Ban TikTok, say hello to TokTik. Ban TokTik, say hello to KitKot. And so on and so forth.
Regulating the use of algorithms to selectively push content would be a broader approach. For example. But also require ancient politicians to understand the problem and adress it. Rather than providing a performative 'solution' via ban.
Make a simple law that all "algorithms" must be public and you can request what yours is and must be provided with in 1 day of the request. As well you can request op-out of anything that has been added to your profile.
It might fix social media if you could see what was being pushed on you.
So China pays €530m for the data it wants instead of getting it for free. This is not data protection nor especially punitive. This is monetising data theft for EU benefit.
That's not how this works. Same as with Google and Apple, along the fine they get an order to become GDPR compliant within 6 months. If they fail to do so, there will be further escalating consequences. So either they follow the regulations, or they will face increasing fines and go bankrupt or leave EU market.
I'd say it was a fine to deter big companies from doing this. Half a billion euros isn't cheap. And if they continued it then the next fine would be much larger. Then a potential ban of the app.
the thing so many people seem to be ignoring is that, while tiktok is freaking massive and this might not be a massive fine when looking at it from a global scale. It's a freaking large sum of cash when you consider the EU is only fining for actions in the EU
People keep yelling and asking for higher fines in the EU but I would say, start yelling at where you live. if the EU fines half a billion, and so does the US, and Brazil And japan and australia and egypt and south africa and so on. they'll stop this shit so much faster than if the eu doubled, or even trippled the fine.
2% of its annual revenue (2024 revenue estimates are 23 billion) is the cost of doing business when data sales are basically one of the main ways it makes money.
Quite true, but that’s not really how business think. They go to great lengths like operating facets of their business at a loss to draw in more money elsewhere. Things like flagship stores in Times Square NYC. Hershey’s candy store is from a strictly dollar standpoint losing money having that store where it is, but the high profile marketing and advertising it brings them makes it worth it. TikTok being ever present in the world is more profitable for them regardless of fines it’s the cost of doing business to them.
I would say yes, because it allows them an incredibly rich source of data about connections between people, attention spans, manipulability, movement, socioeconomics, and a ton of other information. Basically, that much raw data into the populace of an adversarial country you want to influence is nearly priceless.
Worth != Cash on hand, you can't pay fines with market cap.
They post $20-30 billion USD/year in revenue, TikTok is not profitable on it's own. It's parent company, ByteDance, "only" made $33 billion in profit in 2024, so 1.6% of global profit for a single fine is pretty substantial.
Companies should be seized by governments and their management and executives imprisoned if they pull shit like this. Not a slap on the wrist like this.
Exactly. Currently the biggest issue for people is they lose a bit of their privacy. But if war breaks where we are could be a national security issue. There has been dataleaks detaling years of location data, including driver of cars and off of military personell and i think Governments are perfectly reasoned to require massive amounts of data to stay within the borders and i might say it though it seems a little out there, if a NATO country goes to war a total EU based ban on data sales, storing 3rd party data and reselling any kind of sensitive data will happen and its not a if question And its currently been too profitable for anybody high up to want to get rid of it on a legal level. Data breaches alone does irreversible damage to peoples lives with id theft and i dont really even want to think about what could be done with the data we willingly give away if it gets used in active warfare.
There is still no data protection, so it didn't change much. Also it's not a big money for them. Sending data about your citizens to a crazy regimes must be a crime, and prison afterwards, not just money.
The decision includes administrative fines totalling €530 million and an order requiring TikTok to bring its processing into compliance within 6 months. The decision also includes an order suspending TikTok’s transfers to China if processing is not brought into compliance within this timeframe.
Data sales to countries actively in war or with a big military industry should be treason charges, not just a slap on the wrist. With rise of state sponsoref hacking groups i would not be surprised if data sales and reselling soon becomes outlawed to minimize the risks of large scale data leaks on the magnitude of the sony/playstation and facebook leak thats exposed billions of user accounts
Still remember I had an argument with someone on the reddit back in 2020 when Tik tok was banned in my country ( India ), over similar concerns, EU always takes action on such things, good to see.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Friday that TikTok infringed the bloc’s GDPR data protection law over transfers of European user data to China.
The regulator ordered TikTok to bring its data processing into compliance within six months and said it would suspend TikTok’s transfers to China if it doesn’t do so in time.
Western policymakers and regulators are concerned TikTok’s transfers of user data could lead to Beijing accessing the data to spy on users with the app.
TikTok has been fined 530 million euros ($601.3 million) by Ireland’s privacy regulator for sending user data to China.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) — which leads on privacy oversight for TikTok in the EU — said Friday that TikTok infringed the bloc’s GDPR data protection law over transfers of European user data to China.
The regulator ordered TikTok to bring its data processing into compliance within six months and said it would suspend TikTok’s transfers to China if processing is not brought into compliance within that timeframe.
“TikTok’s personal data transfers to China infringed the GDPR because TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of EEA users, remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU,” Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner at the DPC, said in a statement Friday.
“As a result of TikTok’s failure to undertake the necessary assessments, TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards,” he added.
The DPC said it also found TikTok had provided inaccurate information to its inquiry when it claimed it hadn’t stored European users’ data on servers located in China. TikTok informed the regulator this month that it discovered an issue in February where limited European user data had been stored on servers in China, contrary to its prior statements.
The DPC takes the issue “very seriously” and is considering what further regulatory action may be warranted in consultation with its fellow EU data protection authorities, Doyle said.
TikTok said it disagrees with the Irish regulator’s decision and plans to appeal in full.
In a blog post Friday, Christine Grahn, TikTok’s head of public policy and government relations for Europe, said the decision failed to take into account Project Clover, a 12-billion-euro data security initiative aimed at protecting European user data.
“It instead focuses on a select period from years ago, prior to Clover’s 2023 implementation and does not reflect the safeguards now in place,” Grahn said.
“The DPC itself recorded in its report what TikTok has consistently said: it has never received a request for European user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided European user data to them,” she added.
TikTok has previously acknowledged that staff in China can access user data.
In 2022, it said in an update to its privacy policy that employees in countries where it operates — including China, Brazil, Canada and Israel — are permitted access to users’ data to ensure their experience is “consistent, enjoyable and safe.”
Western policymakers and regulators are concerned TikTok’s transfers of user data could lead to Beijing accessing the data to spy on users with the app. Under Chinese law, tech companies are required to hand over user data to the Chinese government if requested to assist with vaguely-defined “intelligence work.”
For its part, TikTok has insisted that it has never sent user data to the Chinese government. In 2023, TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew said in written testimony for a U.S. Congress hearing that the app “has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government.”
TikTok needs to be replaced with an open platform that is not controlled by any one country and cannot be abused for Disinformation campaigns and Propaganda purposes like TikTok is.
Edit : Not sure why this is downvote worthy. Would love if Reddit showed the countries the downvotes originate from, i assume Russia and/or China because they are the main ones abusing TikTok that way ;)
Where do I start ... because it reads like something written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about how things work?
Specifically, the 'not controlled by any one country' bit is something that only exists in a magical fantasy land. Same goes for 'cannot be abused for propaganda' bit, which is inherently incompatible with the 'show me what other people like' model of reddit, and 'show me what other people who like the same thing as me like' models of tiktok¹ and youtube. Or even 'show me what people who I give a fuck about' model of early social media and internet in general.
[1] though in tiktok's case, there's also CCP approval factor hardcoded somewhere in the mix
Dublin is at the centre of the [EU's] General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regime because the city hosts the European headquarters of the likes of Google, Meta, Twitter and TikTok.
'TikTok informed the regulator this month that it discovered an issue in February where limited European user data had been stored on servers in China, contrary to its prior statements.'
Euro poors. Enough said. You should just say ‘I’m a gobshite’. It means the same thing. This isn’t about US companies though? There’s nothing keeping them shithole companies in Europe anyway except for money. They are always welcome to fuck off
Really? IKEA had to settle for printing 6 card digits on receipts instead of just 4 digits with the Americans citing they were at risk of identity theft.
The US has insane data breach fines and punitive civil remedies for this stuff.
California has the CCPA which is an automatic 100 - 740 dollars a head, without the claimant even having to suffer any losses or harm. That's just the statutory damages. We don't get that shit here.
Didnt you hear? China doesnt own tiktok anymore.
ReplyDeleteNot enough
ReplyDeleteok your honour.
Deleteit's a drop in the ocean to companies like Tiktok. If you're gonna fine a huge corporation, especially for something as serious as that, make it hurt!
DeleteTiktok is worth between $100-200 Billion!
What’s it matter. Not like they can make them pay it. What are they going to do, threaten to go to war with their 2500 people? lol.
DeleteThis what TikTok promised wasn’t happening, by the way
ReplyDeleteIf Tik Tok failed to protect the data of users in the European Union, where privacy law is stricter than here, and improperly transferred user data to China, why would Americans-- or our government -- trust Tik Tok to protect our own user data?
ReplyDeleteToo bad Irish law (and I'm guessing here) didn't allow a larger fine.
ReplyDeleteBut they would never do that with American’s data would they? Hah! Wait, they looked Trump in the eye ( and promised a big payoff?)
ReplyDeleteIf you're worried about Tiktok, then you should be doubly worried about other US tech companies.
ReplyDeleteWe can -and probably should- be worried about both. I don't trust Zuckerberg as far as I could throw him.
DeleteIs anyone really surprised? And if you are I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale...
ReplyDelete"TikTok did not protect the data of users in the European Union, improperly transferring some of it to China."
ReplyDeleteThis should not come as a surprise to anyone.
And facebook wants my biometric data to use their website. Social Media is becoming some sort of evil that needs to be regulated.
ReplyDeleteAs Ralph Kramden said, "a mere bag of shells."
ReplyDeleteWhy does it seem the European Union does a better job at holding huge companies responsible for privacy violations than our feeble Congress? I think our politicians are lobbied and moneyed into submission. And our electorate is too ignorant. Case in point: the Trump tariffs are taxes on the average citizen to end up as more tax breaks for the wealthy.
ReplyDeleteIllinois does a good job.
DeleteIt only makes sense to me that, if China is harvesting EU data, they would also harvest US data.
ReplyDeleteThey just don’t learn, and users aren’t paying enough attention.
ReplyDeleteWhy does the EU allow Ireland to enforce tax & privacy rules when it has been shown over and over again to be under the control of the companies it is supposed to regulate. Maybe Ireland should be forced out of the EU unless it starts taking its responsibilities seriously.
ReplyDeleteOne of the guiding principles in the EU is subsidiarity, so some EU laws can be enforced nationally. This enforcement is audited by the European Commission and it’s true that Ireland is seen to do too much to make their country attractive for multinationals. This isn’t just an ‘Irish’ failing though. I believe the same behaviour can be seen in the US, where states are competing for headquarters.
DeleteIn the EU persuasion is preferred to wielding a big stick, since national governments have a lot of say in how things are run (European Council) and it’s not possible to kick countries out, but the EC can fine countries if they fail to enforce EU laws and ultimately countries can lose voting rights, though the latter is very difficult to achieve. Hungary might just be the first to lose it, but their breaches are much more serious.
Anyone who thinks the Chinese government is not stealing the data and listening to every conversation that Tik Tok users have is kidding themselves. The PRC has one of the best cybersecurity teams in the world, and getting the people of their competitor nations to voluntarily download an app that gives complete access to their phones is the masterstroke of their government. To believe that they would not monitor every activity that they could with this tool is an enormous exercise in self-delusion by those who still have it loaded on their devices.
ReplyDeleteBytedance's global revenue last year was $155 billion. A $600 million fine that will take half a decade or more to arbitrate is a rounding error, and will result in no change in behavior or approach.
ReplyDeleteIf Bytedance fails to change their behaviour, the fines can be escalated and other privacy watchdogs and the European Commission can get involved. So far also the bigger multinationals, such as Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Meta have all chosen to cooperate with EU laws rather than to ignore them.
DeleteA fine is not sufficient punishment for this kind of illegal behavior. Once your data is out, lives can be ruined. In the aggregate, democracy at risk. The only true deterrent is long jail sentences for the board of directors and executives and anyone in direct or indirect supervision of those who sent the data.
ReplyDeleteIts also equally illegal to transfer these data to the US!
DeleteThis article serves as a reminder that promises of data privacy, made by a social network company, are almost impossible to verify or enforce.
ReplyDeleteThis article describes a governmental response to the violation of data privacy policies of a large group of people. However, it is virtually impossible for a particular end user to defend themselves in this way, except to avoid the service altogether.
According to the article: "Irish authorities said the Chinese government, under its antiterrorism and anti-espionage laws, could have gained access to those users’ data."
Tic Toc just wants to keep their “ Good Guy” status with the world youth but the US and Europe are rapidly pulling their pants down exposing their foul smelling interior run by the CCP!
ReplyDeletethe MEDIA hates Tic TOC
ReplyDeletefor it did show the truth in REAL TIME and the media want to hide the truth!
Where’s the ban for TikTok?
ReplyDeleteNowhere, because everyone's afraid to ban it now. It's used by a lot of young people and banning it might upset them.
DeleteNot like any of them vote here in Ireland, what will they do
Deletestart voting, against whoever voted for the ban, a politicians worst nightmare
DeleteOnly boomers vote in Ireland that’s why nothing ever changes
DeleteNothing ever changes... Gay Marriage legal, abortion legal, divorce legal.. yep no changes at all.
DeleteSo the problems where they just have to change the law wording…… not the actual problems
Deletewording changes won’t fix health care, housing, mismanagement of infrastructure projects, year long driving test backlogs
“We should celebrate the government being forced to do the bare minimum!”
You said nothing ever changes, well except for your argument, that is.
DeleteIf the only thing young people care enough to vote about is TikTok, we’re already screwed.
DeleteSame thing for the US. For the most part, young people vote the least among the age groups. We've all been at the point of being young, idealistic, and naive but the poor fucks can't even see that not angering their whole group, even with the fact they barely vote, is the reason TikTok hasn't been banned yet (or sold, which makes way more sense than a ban because you remove CCP control while keeping the young people "happy")
DeleteThey don't vote regardless of country
DeleteA lot of young people want to be the next superstar influencer. Its about fame. Money.
DeleteOlder generations will always find a way to complain about the younger ones. Never mind the fact that you're using social media yourself, a chunk of young people have always had dreams of fame and money, through acting or singing or something else. Most young people don't want Tiktok to become a star, just for entertainment, so if you're using your powers to take it away, you might as well provide an alternative
DeleteNo actually… its not just for entertainment. 57% of gen z want to be influencers. Some studies have shown its higher…
Deletehttps://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/14/more-than-half-of-gen-z-want-to-be-influencers-but-its-constant.html
I’m not complaining about the young people. The saddest part of the switch from tv to social media as the dream job is the unpaid labor. People used to move to los angeles (i used to live near hollywood) when they wanted to be in the movies. They’d take a job as an extra and get paid at least minimum wage. Now, the people i know who are trying to do social media… its lots of totally unpaid labor or sub-minimum wage. Social media companies just out to harvest their data without compensating workers.
And trying to ban it results in them actively seeking out Chinese social media like Rednote, much to the regular users' confusion. Shit's in Mandarin for god's sake and they still flooded in.
Deletelike young people matter. Most parties aim for the old. And they are not wrong.
DeleteTake a 13year old using TikTok. He might still use it at 17. Now at 21 you might lose his vote over banning tiktok(since there are no other problems /s). At 25 he is likely working or studying. Id say any TikTok things you did might be long forgotten. At 29 he has bigger problems.
Anyone still making his one choice of voting, depending on TikTok is just a fool you cant rely on anyhow.
Now take the same 5 elections and argue for a 60 year old. His life doesnt change anymore. He thinks about his pension and his investment portfolio. Thats all he cares about. Thats a stable demographic you can rely on voting for your shitty old party over and over again.
What if Tiktok doesn't want to pay? Will Ireland ban them?
Delete*Europe
DeleteIt technically is banned but nobody wants to enforce it
DeleteThose young people are too stupid to care. They're just suckle on on Instagram.
DeleteJust get it over with now otherwise you will see a slow subversion of your democracies. Heavily regulate the other services too.
DeleteYoung people are not stupid.
DeleteToo much money milked from these companies to ban them. Its like issuing parking tickets 😹
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis is half the revenue and 50 times the profit they made in 2023 in Europe.
Deletehttps://www.breakingnews.ie/business/irish-arm-of-tiktok-records-e950m-loss-after-setting-aside-funds-for-potential-fines-1708692.html
Hardly solves the problem. Neither the influence nor the Data scraping. Ban TikTok, say hello to TokTik. Ban TokTik, say hello to KitKot. And so on and so forth.
DeleteRegulating the use of algorithms to selectively push content would be a broader approach. For example. But also require ancient politicians to understand the problem and adress it. Rather than providing a performative 'solution' via ban.
Make a simple law that all "algorithms" must be public and you can request what yours is and must be provided with in 1 day of the request. As well you can request op-out of anything that has been added to your profile.
DeleteIt might fix social media if you could see what was being pushed on you.
Never ever going to happen.
Delete!remind me 10 years
So China pays €530m for the data it wants instead of getting it for free. This is not data protection nor especially punitive. This is monetising data theft for EU benefit.
ReplyDeleteThat's not how this works. Same as with Google and Apple, along the fine they get an order to become GDPR compliant within 6 months. If they fail to do so, there will be further escalating consequences. So either they follow the regulations, or they will face increasing fines and go bankrupt or leave EU market.
DeleteI'd say it was a fine to deter big companies from doing this. Half a billion euros isn't cheap. And if they continued it then the next fine would be much larger. Then a potential ban of the app.
Deletethe thing so many people seem to be ignoring is that, while tiktok is freaking massive and this might not be a massive fine when looking at it from a global scale. It's a freaking large sum of cash when you consider the EU is only fining for actions in the EU
DeletePeople keep yelling and asking for higher fines in the EU but I would say, start yelling at where you live. if the EU fines half a billion, and so does the US, and Brazil And japan and australia and egypt and south africa and so on. they'll stop this shit so much faster than if the eu doubled, or even trippled the fine.
2% of its annual revenue (2024 revenue estimates are 23 billion) is the cost of doing business when data sales are basically one of the main ways it makes money.
DeleteOnly a small percentage of that revenue is from Europe though, so the cost of doing business in Europe specifically is pretty high.
DeleteQuite true, but that’s not really how business think. They go to great lengths like operating facets of their business at a loss to draw in more money elsewhere. Things like flagship stores in Times Square NYC. Hershey’s candy store is from a strictly dollar standpoint losing money having that store where it is, but the high profile marketing and advertising it brings them makes it worth it. TikTok being ever present in the world is more profitable for them regardless of fines it’s the cost of doing business to them.
Deletenot if sets a regulatory precedent and replicates a budgetary pattern, this isn't a movie
DeleteTikTok is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. This was 100% worth it to them.
DeleteWould China pay $10 billion for partial surveillance/user data over a huge fraction of the planet's population?
DeleteDepends on how partial it is I would guess.
DeleteI would say yes, because it allows them an incredibly rich source of data about connections between people, attention spans, manipulability, movement, socioeconomics, and a ton of other information. Basically, that much raw data into the populace of an adversarial country you want to influence is nearly priceless.
DeleteWorth != Cash on hand, you can't pay fines with market cap.
DeleteThey post $20-30 billion USD/year in revenue, TikTok is not profitable on it's own. It's parent company, ByteDance, "only" made $33 billion in profit in 2024, so 1.6% of global profit for a single fine is pretty substantial.
I'll call BS that it's deterring them at all lol.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteYou don’t understand. The fine increases until they comply or go bankrupt.
DeleteDoes a bear shit in the woods?
ReplyDeleteOnly if there's somebody there to hear it.
DeleteI thought the original was "does the pope shit in the woods?", but that's not doable these days.
DeleteDue to the lack of woods or lack of the protagonist?
DeleteI’m sorry, is it too soon?
If lack of pope gives you wood then it is always too soon.
Deleteare bears catholic
DeleteNot the ones in the zoo
DeleteCompanies should be seized by governments and their management and executives imprisoned if they pull shit like this. Not a slap on the wrist like this.
ReplyDeleteHow does one seize a company that’s in a different country?
DeleteI guess do it the Trump way and convince them to sell the company to you (still shady)
DeleteWhen did Trump do that?
DeleteEurope in general has let social media conglomerates from other continents influence their public opinion for far too long.
DeleteExactly. Currently the biggest issue for people is they lose a bit of their privacy. But if war breaks where we are could be a national security issue. There has been dataleaks detaling years of location data, including driver of cars and off of military personell and i think Governments are perfectly reasoned to require massive amounts of data to stay within the borders and i might say it though it seems a little out there, if a NATO country goes to war a total EU based ban on data sales, storing 3rd party data and reselling any kind of sensitive data will happen and its not a if question And its currently been too profitable for anybody high up to want to get rid of it on a legal level. Data breaches alone does irreversible damage to peoples lives with id theft and i dont really even want to think about what could be done with the data we willingly give away if it gets used in active warfare.
DeleteThere is still no data protection, so it didn't change much. Also it's not a big money for them. Sending data about your citizens to a crazy regimes must be a crime, and prison afterwards, not just money.
ReplyDeleteThe decision includes administrative fines totalling €530 million and an order requiring TikTok to bring its processing into compliance within 6 months. The decision also includes an order suspending TikTok’s transfers to China if processing is not brought into compliance within this timeframe.
DeleteData sales to countries actively in war or with a big military industry should be treason charges, not just a slap on the wrist. With rise of state sponsoref hacking groups i would not be surprised if data sales and reselling soon becomes outlawed to minimize the risks of large scale data leaks on the magnitude of the sony/playstation and facebook leak thats exposed billions of user accounts
DeleteStill remember I had an argument with someone on the reddit back in 2020 when Tik tok was banned in my country ( India ), over similar concerns, EU always takes action on such things, good to see.
ReplyDeleteHow much of the fine will be distributed to the users?
ReplyDeleteIf it goes to the government Treasury, then... Amount/population.
DeleteYou wanna get 1$ ? And that’s rounding nicely plus the people who don’t use TikTok . So your data was probably worth 0,3$
DeleteA $530 million fine feels pretty light when you consider TikTok has 159 million users in the EU.
DeleteUnless, of course, your privacy is only worth a few bits.
Needs to include the threat of exponentially heftier charges applied for each additional day that it continues.
ReplyDeleteThe Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said Friday that TikTok infringed the bloc’s GDPR data protection law over transfers of European user data to China.
ReplyDeleteThe regulator ordered TikTok to bring its data processing into compliance within six months and said it would suspend TikTok’s transfers to China if it doesn’t do so in time.
Western policymakers and regulators are concerned TikTok’s transfers of user data could lead to Beijing accessing the data to spy on users with the app.
TikTok has been fined 530 million euros ($601.3 million) by Ireland’s privacy regulator for sending user data to China.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) — which leads on privacy oversight for TikTok in the EU — said Friday that TikTok infringed the bloc’s GDPR data protection law over transfers of European user data to China.
The regulator ordered TikTok to bring its data processing into compliance within six months and said it would suspend TikTok’s transfers to China if processing is not brought into compliance within that timeframe.
“TikTok’s personal data transfers to China infringed the GDPR because TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of EEA users, remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU,” Graham Doyle, deputy commissioner at the DPC, said in a statement Friday.
“As a result of TikTok’s failure to undertake the necessary assessments, TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards,” he added.
The DPC said it also found TikTok had provided inaccurate information to its inquiry when it claimed it hadn’t stored European users’ data on servers located in China. TikTok informed the regulator this month that it discovered an issue in February where limited European user data had been stored on servers in China, contrary to its prior statements.
The DPC takes the issue “very seriously” and is considering what further regulatory action may be warranted in consultation with its fellow EU data protection authorities, Doyle said.
TikTok said it disagrees with the Irish regulator’s decision and plans to appeal in full.
In a blog post Friday, Christine Grahn, TikTok’s head of public policy and government relations for Europe, said the decision failed to take into account Project Clover, a 12-billion-euro data security initiative aimed at protecting European user data.
“It instead focuses on a select period from years ago, prior to Clover’s 2023 implementation and does not reflect the safeguards now in place,” Grahn said.
“The DPC itself recorded in its report what TikTok has consistently said: it has never received a request for European user data from the Chinese authorities, and has never provided European user data to them,” she added.
TikTok has previously acknowledged that staff in China can access user data.
In 2022, it said in an update to its privacy policy that employees in countries where it operates — including China, Brazil, Canada and Israel — are permitted access to users’ data to ensure their experience is “consistent, enjoyable and safe.”
DeleteWestern policymakers and regulators are concerned TikTok’s transfers of user data could lead to Beijing accessing the data to spy on users with the app. Under Chinese law, tech companies are required to hand over user data to the Chinese government if requested to assist with vaguely-defined “intelligence work.”
For its part, TikTok has insisted that it has never sent user data to the Chinese government. In 2023, TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew said in written testimony for a U.S. Congress hearing that the app “has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government.”
Except their company is mandatorily staffed by government party members. Why does the company need a request?
DeleteI thought sending user data straight to China was the whole foundational reason for using TikTok?
ReplyDeleteWake me up when the final amount this will be negotiated down to is actually collected
ReplyDeleteTikTok needs to be replaced with an open platform that is not controlled by any one country and cannot be abused for Disinformation campaigns and Propaganda purposes like TikTok is.
ReplyDeleteEdit : Not sure why this is downvote worthy. Would love if Reddit showed the countries the downvotes originate from, i assume Russia and/or China because they are the main ones abusing TikTok that way ;)
As a European I'm really worried that we do not even have a popular native social media platform aside from Fediverse/Mastodon/Lemmy forks.
DeleteIm terminally online and I know one of those so idk if you can call them popular
DeleteI am on Fediverse, it’s great
DeleteI bet you'd like a music wish as well.
Delete"Edit : Not sure why this is downvote worthy."
Where do I start ... because it reads like something written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about how things work?
Specifically, the 'not controlled by any one country' bit is something that only exists in a magical fantasy land. Same goes for 'cannot be abused for propaganda' bit, which is inherently incompatible with the 'show me what other people like' model of reddit, and 'show me what other people who like the same thing as me like' models of tiktok¹ and youtube. Or even 'show me what people who I give a fuck about' model of early social media and internet in general.
[1] though in tiktok's case, there's also CCP approval factor hardcoded somewhere in the mix
Just because you can't imagine a way to make it work, doesn't mean it's impossible.
DeleteBut thats a tale as old as time.
ireland of all places?`why no eu?
ReplyDeleteDublin is at the centre of the [EU's] General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regime because the city hosts the European headquarters of the likes of Google, Meta, Twitter and TikTok.
Deletehttps://ednh.news/en/how-ireland-became-eus-reluctant-data-privacy-enforcer/
There's one zero missing for them to feel something.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a fine , its just a price tag at this point.
ReplyDeleteFuck TikTok. Read books
ReplyDeleteWhy the fuck is anyone still using or allowing this app?
ReplyDelete'TikTok informed the regulator this month that it discovered an issue in February where limited European user data had been stored on servers in China, contrary to its prior statements.'
ReplyDeleteI guess this is why the fine is relatively small.
Shocking news: a Chinese company sending information to China. They are lucky the us ban was postponed.
ReplyDeleteabsolute peanuts
ReplyDeleteSenator, I am Singaporean, probably.
ReplyDeleteAll the EU does is fine American tech companies. Welfare for the euro poors.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the American company in this story?
DeleteYour awareness is obviously low about this. Happened a little over a week ago.
DeleteApr 22, 2025
Commission finds Apple and Meta in breach of the Digital Markets Act
the Commission has fined Apple and Meta with €500 million and €200 million respectively.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1085
The Euro poors also have fined Google over 8 billion euros total so far.
All the tech companies do is break EU law.
DeleteEuro poors. Enough said. You should just say ‘I’m a gobshite’. It means the same thing. This isn’t about US companies though? There’s nothing keeping them shithole companies in Europe anyway except for money. They are always welcome to fuck off
DeleteWho are you addressing?
ReplyDeleteAs a European, we don't care.
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem of the US. We have data protection laws and use them. The US doesn't.
Really? IKEA had to settle for printing 6 card digits on receipts instead of just 4 digits with the Americans citing they were at risk of identity theft.
ReplyDeleteThe US has insane data breach fines and punitive civil remedies for this stuff.
California has the CCPA which is an automatic 100 - 740 dollars a head, without the claimant even having to suffer any losses or harm. That's just the statutory damages. We don't get that shit here.
"The US has insane data breach fines and punitive civil remedies for this stuff."
ReplyDeletelol Equifax
Considering the protection of consumer data is shockingly bad in the US, they almost certainly are.
ReplyDeleteLiterally nobody has said that they havnt ..even tiktok would admit they have lol
ReplyDelete