Shou Zi Chew asked to meet with European officials. The goal is for TikTok to best apply the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes heavy obligations on web giants.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew meets several senior European officials in Brussels on Tuesday (January 10th) as the Chinese social network, much criticized in the United States, must prepare for new European Union (EU) rules against the misinformation and hate speech.
Shou Zi Chew will meet at her request the Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, as well as her colleagues Vera Jourova, in charge of values and transparency, Ylva Johansson, Commissioner for Home Affairs, and Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice. In particular, issues relating to the protection of privacy, content regulation and the safety of minors on the Internet will be addressed.
A call with Thierry Breton on January 19
Brussels recently warned the boss of Twitter, Elon Musk, fearing that he does not implement the means required by the EU in terms of moderation of messages and the fight against disinformation. The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, had called on him to “significantly increase” his efforts.
“I will say exactly the same thing to the president of TikTok so that he too prepares to apply all of our rules (…) and the obligations, including on the transparency of their algorithms”, has he said Monday, January 9, during a press conference in Madrid.
Due to this trip to Spain, Thierry Breton will not be able to meet Shou Zi Chew on Tuesday, but a videoconference call between the two officials has been scheduled for January 19.
TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is Chinese, is criticized for the addiction it arouses among children and adolescents. In the United States, a law has prohibited its use on the devices of civil servants, while elected officials accuse it of being a tool of espionage and propaganda in the service of China, against a backdrop of tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Audits by independent bodies
ByteDance is also the subject of an investigation by the Irish Privacy Authority, which is looking into whether the company has breached European data protection law (GDPR) in relation to data processing. children’s personal information and data transfers to China.
New EU legislation to regulate online platforms and better tackle disinformation and hate speech came into force in November.
This law on digital services (DSA) will force the biggest players from the summer of 2023 to be audited at their own expense by independent bodies, to assess the risks associated with their use and to put in place the means to mitigate them.
“We are fully committed to implementing the provisions of the DSA and have made key resources available across the company to ensure our future compliance with the regulations,” a TikTok spokesperson told AFP.
