Italian authorities restrict TikTok's access for certain users following girl's death

Italy’s data protection authority, on January 22, said that it was imposing an immediate block on TikTok’s access to data for any user whose has t been verified. ban came following death of a 10-year-old girl from Sicily, who “accidentally” killed her self after participating in TikTok’s viral ‘blackout challenge’. TikTok, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has repeatedly drawn flak for its dangerous online challenges like outlet challenge, skull breaker challenge amongst ors.

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data protection authority, in December last year, had advised TikTok of a series of violations which included allowing mirs to sign up easily on platform, lack of transparency, respect of privacy inter alia. However, as violations continued, authority imposed block. As per Associated Press, block would remain in place until February 15 after which furr analysis would be done.

“While waiting to receive a response, authority decided to take action to ensure immediate protection of mirs in Italy registered on network,” authority said in a statement.

TikTok banned in US, India

TikTok has been banned in multiple countries including American and India. In a massive crackdown against Chinese apps, government of India, in June 2020 banned TikTok along with 48 ors. Centre had stated that it has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of se apps for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India. Hence, in a move to protect sovereignty of Indian Cyber and to ensure interests of crores of Indian mobile users, government has stated that this was a major blow to China’s Digital Silk Route ambitions.

With pandemic pushing people inside ir homes, use of social media has gained momentum. However, it has also led to increased use of social media and it's viral challenges that often end up in accidents. As of w, re are over 41 people whose death has been linked to TikTok. 

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(Im: Pixabey)