After US and India, EU consumers accuse TikTok of violating user rights on 'massive scale'

After the US and India, the European Union has now also issued a warning to the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, TikTok. According to Bloomberg, the European consumer campaign group BECU on February 16 said that TikTok is breaching the rights of users on a “massive scale”. In a statement, the organisation claimed that a probe ought to be launched in terms of the app’s “unfair” copyright policy and virtual coins. 

Brussels-based BEUC said that the Chinese-owned app has also failed to protect children and teenagers from harmful content or hidden advertising. Monique Goyens, BEUC’s director-general noted that in just a few years, TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps with millions of users across Europe. Goyens said, however, the app is letting its users down by breaching their rights. The director-general further said that the BEUC has filed a complaint with the European Commission and national consumer -protection authorities. 

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TikTok is already being probed by EU data authorities over how it handles children’s personal information. ByteDance Ltd, on the other hand, is discussing potential security concerns over data sharing with the US following former President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban the Chinese app last year. BEUC said that TikTok’s copyright terms are unfair in giving the company an irrevocable right to use videos without payment. 

Further, the group even criticised how TikTok sells coins for virtual gifts where the company has “an absolute right to modify the exchange rate between the coins and the gifts, potentially skewing the financial transaction in its own favour”. According to reports, TikTok has said in an email that it has asked BEUC for a meeting to listen to its concerns.

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TikTok feud with US, India

TikTok is a Chinese application where users can watch, create and share content to gain popularity and viewership. The entertainment app is owned by a Chinese app development company called ByteDance. The application was, last year, called out by the then US National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, who publicly stated that the Chinese Government was using TikTok for its own purposes. Following which, Trump targeted the application using several executive orders aimed at ending its use in the US. Despite numerous tries, US courts repeatedly and temporarily blocked the White House’s attempted ban. 

In June last year, the Indian Home Ministry had also banned 59 Chinese Apps including Tik-Tok. The Centre had stated that it received many complaints from various sources including several reports about the misuse of these apps for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers that have locations outside India. Hence, in a move to protect the sovereignty of Indian Cyberspace and to ensure the interests of crores of Indian mobile users, the government stated that this was a major blow to China’s Digital Silk Route ambitions. 

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