Category Archives: TikTok

Congress passed a TikTok bill. Will the US really ban the app?

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A bill passed by Congress and signed by Biden requires owner ByteDance to sell or face a US ban – it’s its biggest threat yet

The House of Representatives passed a bill that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the United States. The Senate passed it less than a week later. Joe Biden signed it a day after the Senate voted yes.

TikTok is facing its biggest existential threat yet in the US. The app was banned in Montana last year, but courts found that prohibition unconstitutional, and it never went into effect.

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China could use TikTok to influence US elections, spy chief says

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The US House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill giving Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to sell that part of its business

China could use social media app TikTok to influence the 2024 US elections, the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, has told a House of Representatives intelligence committee hearing.

Asked by Democratic Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi if China’s ruling Communist party (CCP) would use TikTok to influence the elections, Haines said “we cannot rule out that the CCP would use it”.

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Cat Janice, viral TikTok singer, dies aged 31

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Singer had documented her experience with a rare form of cancer on platform and dedicated her last song to her son

Cat Janice, the singer who went viral for dedicating her last song to her son and inspired a viral TikTok trend, has died from cancer, her family confirmed on Wednesday.

Her family announced the news on her Instagram account: “This morning, from her childhood home and surrounded by her loving family, Catherine peacefully entered the light and love of her heavenly creator.

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How a TikTok clip led demand for 177-year-old sourdough starter to rise

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US enthusiasts who follow the tradition of sharing dough are now receiving about 1,000 requests a week, up from 30 to 60

“There’s an old pioneer tradition” dating from the earliest days of the colonisation of the US west, says Mary Buckingham, “that you shared your bread starter with anyone who asked.”

Which was all very well until TikTok came along.

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EU opens investigation into TikTok over online content and child safeguarding

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Video platform under scrutiny over potential breach of Digital Services Act in areas such as age verification

The EU has launched a formal investigation into whether TikTok has broken online content rules including the safeguarding of children.

The European Commission said it had opened official proceedings against the Chinese-owned short video platform over potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

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Flanders government looks to force TikTok and YouTube to share revenue

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Belgium already takes a cut from Netflix and Disney and new income will support local TV production

Cute cat videos, fried chicken clips and viral dances could soon help to finance Belgian TV, with the Flanders government on the verge of passing laws to force TikTok and YouTube to share revenues with local television producers.

“Politically speaking, it is important in audiovisual and media services that there are obligations on companies to invest in local TV content,” the media minister for the Flemish government, Benjamin Dalle, told the Guardian.

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How 2023 became the year Congress forgot to ban TikTok

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Momentum seemed to be on their side of US lawmakers this year to stop 150 million Americans from using TikTok. What happened?

Banning TikTok in the US seemed almost inevitable at the start of 2023. The previous year saw a trickle of legislative actions against the short-form video app, after dozens of individual states barred TikTok from government devices in late 2022 over security concerns. At the top of the new year, the US House followed suit, and four universities blocked TikTok from campus wifi.

The movement to prohibit TikTok grew into a flash flood by spring. CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress for brutal questioning in March. By April – with support from the White House (and Joe Biden’s predecessor) – it seemed a federal ban of the app was not just possible, but imminent.

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Nikki Haley says TikTok makes people ‘17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas’

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Republican presidential contender mocked for claim about Chinese-owned app during primary debate on Wednesday night

The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley claimed during the Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday that watching TikTok made people “17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas” every 30 minutes.

“We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all and let me tell you why,” Haley said. “For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok every day they become 17% more antisemitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.”

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US judge blocks Montana’s TikTok state ban: ‘oversteps state power’

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In a preliminary injunction on Thursday, Judge Donald Molloy said first-of-its-kind ban violates free speech rights of users

A US judge has blocked Montana’s first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short-video sharing app TikTok from taking effect on 1 January, saying it violated the free speech rights of users.

In a preliminary injunction on Thursday, US district judge Donald Molloy said the law “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users”.

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B&Q owner issues another profit warning after weak sales in France

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UK business lifted by ‘improve not move’ trend and interior design videos on TikTok

The owner of B&Q and Screwfix issued its second profit warning in three months after weak sales in France but said its UK business is being boosted by the “improve not move” trend and interior design videos on TikTok.

Kingfisher, which also owns Castorama and Brico Dépôt in France and operates in Poland, Iberia and Romania, too, reported an almost 4% sales decline in its financial third quarter, prompting a downgrade in its annual profit forecast from £590m to £560m.

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Nepal says it will ban TikTok, citing effect on ‘social harmony’

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Minister for communications and information technology says the popular video-sharing platform ‘disrupts family structures’

Nepal has said it will ban TikTok, citing negative effects on the country’s “social harmony”.

The popular video-sharing platform, which has around a billion monthly users, has faced restrictions in many countries for alleged breaches of data rules and for the potentially harmful impact on youth of some content.

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How Israel-Hamas war disinformation is being spread online

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Case of footage from set of Palestinian film being repurposed to make false claims is far from one-off

The video shows a young boy in a black T-shirt apparently lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Above him is a camera, with a man shouting directions near him. Two men in kippahs, the Jewish skull caps, and men in green military fatigues similar to Israel Defence Forces (IDF) uniforms are gathered around him.

The clip has been viewed about 2m times on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was shared by a verified user with the caption: “Video showing Israel attempting to create fake footage of deaths.”

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Indonesia bans e-commerce sales on social media platforms like TikTok

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Government says regulation aimed at protecting small businesses from competition

Indonesia has banned goods transactions on social media platforms as it aims to protect small businesses from e-commerce competition.

Calls had grown in recent months for a regulation governing social media and e-commerce, with offline sellers seeing their livelihoods threatened by the sale of cheaper products on TikTok Shop and other platforms.

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TikTok has matchmaking service for staff to play cupid for co-workers

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Meet Cute on company’s intranet allows employees to advertise family and acquaintances to colleagues

TikTok has an internal matchmaking service for employees to introduce their colleagues to friends and family members, it has been revealed.

The channel, called Meet Cute, sits on the workplace tool used by thousands of TikTok employees around the world for document hosting, video conferencing. It also helps people find a potential romantic partner from among their colleagues.

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TikTok fined €345m for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

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Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches

TikTok has been fined €345m (£296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children’s accounts, including failing to shield underage users’ content from public view.

The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules.

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TikTok food tourists leave a bitter taste in Amsterdam

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Shop owners and residents are not taking kindly to ‘flash crowds’ who come to pose and eat fast food in the city’s quaint tangle of streets such as De 9 Straatjes

It is 3.30pm on a Friday and 28-year-old German Lisa Wulff is in a half-hour queue for bubble tea and “toasts” at Amsterdam’s Chun cafe.

“I’ve seen it on social media, and it looks good,” she says. “My generation is more on Instagram, but I have a younger sister, so I saw it on TikTok.”

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TikTok removes 284 accounts linked to Chinese disinformation group

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Action by social media company comes after Facebook parent company Meta shut down 9,000 accounts tied to political spam network

TikTok has removed 284 accounts associated with a Chinese disinformation campaign after Guardian Australia raised questions about several accounts uncovered by the company’s rival Meta.

On Wednesday, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported it had shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with a Chinese political spam network that had targeted users in Australia and other parts of the world.

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Hawaii fires: spread of conspiracy theories reveals tech firms’ failings

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From secret ‘energy weapon’ starting fires to a global cabal razing the town for an experiment – false theories are fast gaining ground

In the aftermath of the devastating wildfires in Maui, misinformation and conspiracy theories have spread online, underscoring the shortcomings of social media firms’ enforcement policies following disasters.

Conspiracy theories including that the fire was started intentionally by a secret “energy weapon” and that a shadowy cabal of global elites set the blazes purposefully to clear the land for their own nefarious uses have gained popularity.

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Teens much more likely to believe online conspiracy claims than adults – US study

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Study shows that 60% of teens between ages 13-17 agreed with four or more conspiracy statements compared with 49% of adults

Teenagers are significantly more likely to believe online conspiracy theories than older generations, a new study has shown, underscoring the broad impacts of gen Z’s relationship with social media.

Findings from Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit that fights misinformation, showed that 60% of 13-17-year-old Americans surveyed agreed with four or more harmful conspiracy statements – compared with just 49% of adults. For teens who spend four or more hours a day on any single social media platform, the figure was as high as 69%.

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TikTok users in UK to be left with ‘more toxic’ version of app, say campaigners

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Activists call on tech giant to extend a change making personalised algorithm optional to comply with rules for EEA countries

TikTok users in the UK face being left with a “less safe” and “more toxic” version of the app than those in Europe after the tech giant was forced to make its personalised algorithm optional there to comply with EU rules.

From the end of August, TikTok users in 30 countries in the European Economic Area will be able to opt out of receiving personalised content recommendations, which are largely generated based on past activity. Instead, their “For You” and live feeds will include popular videos from the places they live and around the world.

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