Congress Asks FTC to Investigate If TikTok Violated Child Privacy Laws
By Movieguide® Contributor
A congressional panel that focuses on China has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether TikTok violated child privacy laws.
A letter, written in collaboration by Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party John Moolenaar of Michigan, and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, called for an investigation into whether the Chinese app preyed on children by sending out messages about the pending TikTok ban.
The letter states, “We write to request that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) examine whether TikTok violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)1 or Section 5 of the FTC Act2 when it pushed intrusive and deceptive pop-up messages to a reportedly large number of users, including children.”
The letter comes after Congress passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
“Congress worked to pass the controversial legislation because the app’s owner, ByteDance, is based in Beijing. President Biden signed the bill, meaning ByteDance will have up to a year to sell the app to prevent it being banned in U.S. app stores,” The Hill reported.
Before the bill passed, TikTok sent out a pop-up to its users.
“Speak up now—before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” the message said. “This will damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”
The pop-up, which went out on March 7, also asked users for their personal information including zip code. It urged them to call Congress “to lobby on TikTok’s behalf.”
The letter continued, “Notably, there is public reporting that TikTok’s campaign impacted ‘young children in classrooms’ and others who appeared to be under the age of 13.5 The solicitation of children using deceptive and inflammatory information resulted in at least one instance of threatened self-harm, with a Congressional office reporting a call from a child threatening suicide.”
A TikTok spokesperson told NBC that the pop-ups were only sent to those 18 and over.
“This letter doesn’t pass the smell test. As we’ve said repeatedly, these notifications went to users aged 18 and older and users receiving them always had multiple options to dismiss the notification,” the spokesperson said. “It is disheartening that Members of Congress are expressing concern simply because they heard from their own constituents imploring them not to pass a bill trampling on their First Amendment rights.”
Movieguide® previously reported on the possible TikTok ban:
The proposed ban would go into place if TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the app… If the proposed ban goes into effect, ByteDance will have six months to divest itself of TikTok.
However, parent company ByteDance doesn’t plan on selling, as Movieguide® reported:
Tech news site The Information reported on Thursday that ByteDance is considering selling TikTok without its algorithm.
The Chinese tech company says this isn’t true.
“ByteDance said a report that it’s mulling the sale of a majority stake in TikTok‘s American business—after the U.S. adopted a law forcing it to divest its ownership position or face a ban of the app—is ‘untrue,’” Variety reported.
The Information claimed that ByteDance “is internally exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. business, preferably to companies outside the tech industry, and without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.”
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