• The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has referred a complaint against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, to the US Department of Justice.
• The complaint is in relation to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
• The FTC believes TikTok has, or is about to, violate child privacy laws via its business practices.

It looks like different entities within the United States government are applying more pressure on TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, as efforts for the latter to divest its interest in order for the social media platform to operate Stateside continue.

The latest entity to do so is the Federal Trade Commission, which was investigating a complaint into the business practices of both TikTok and ByteDance in relation to child privacy laws, but this week has referred the case US Department of Justice.

While the precise nature of the complaints are unknown, it is said to be in relation to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

For those unfamiliar with COPPA, the overarching focus of the Act is that it, “imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.”

Like many of the concerns that the US government has been touting in its bid to get ByteDance to divest, child privacy appears to be the issue here.

“The investigation uncovered reason to believe named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and that a proceeding is in the public interest, so the Commission has voted to refer a complaint to the DOJ, according to the procedures outlined in the FTC Act,” the Commission explained in a statement per TechCrunch.

The publication also noted that referrals of this nature are not often announced by the FTC, but the nature of the investigation and complaint were deemed in the public interest to do so.

In a response published on X, TikTok noted its disappointment in the FTC referring the complaint given it has been working with the agency in order to address any potential concerns.

“We’ve been working with the FTC for more than a year to address its concerns. We’re disappointed the agency is pursuing litigation instead of continuing to work with us on a reasonable solution. We strongly disagree with the FTC’s allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” the statement outlined.

“We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect children and we will continue to update and improve our product. We offer an age-appropriate experience with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16,” it added.

While it remains to be seen what the Department of Justice’s involvement will yield, we only hope that a similar amount of scrutiny is being placed on other US-owned social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter), which too have been cited for potential issues surrounding child privacy and safety.

[Image – Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash]