The Italian competition police announced on Tuesday the opening of an investigation against the Chinese social network TikTok, suspected of not applying its own rules to control “dangerous content that incites suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.”
The investigation by the Italian Competition Authority targets the Irish company TikTok Technology Limited, which is responsible for relations with European consumers, as well as the English and Italian companies, it said in a press release. The Italian headquarters of TikTok was also the subject of an inspection on Tuesday by the Authority assisted by the financial police.
The opening of the investigation was motivated by the presence on the platform of “numerous videos of young people engaging in self-mutilation behaviors”, in particular in relation to the so-called “French scar” challenge, which has gone viral in Italy in this network very popular among minors.
Users considered “vulnerable”
In this fashion challenge for a few weeks, explained by many tutorials on TikTok, college students pinch their cheeks very hard to create a fake scar, a dangerous practice according to doctors. This phenomenon has appeared in France and Italy, causing concern in the education and health sectors.
The Italian gendarme criticizes TikTok in particular for not having put in place adequate systems to monitor content, “especially in the presence of particularly vulnerable users such as minors.”
TikTok has also not “applied its own rules, which include the removal of dangerous content related to challenges, suicide, self-harm and eating disorders,” the Authority underlines in its press release.
questioned algorithm
Finally, TikTok, whose popularity has skyrocketed in favor of the Covid-19 pandemic, is accused of using an algorithm that “personalizes ads and re-proposes similar content to those already seen”, resulting in a ” illegitimate conditioning” of users.
Owned by the Chinese giant ByteDance, TikTok is also currently in the crosshairs of many countries for national security reasons. Following in the footsteps of several Western powers – the United States, Canada and the European Union – the United Kingdom itself banned the app on government devices on Thursday.
Source: BFM TV
