Britain’s privateness watchdog, the Data Commissioner’s Workplace, on Monday launched an investigation into how TikTok, Reddit and on-line picture sharing web site Imgur safeguard kids’s privateness.
Social media firms use advanced algorithms to prioritise content material and maintain customers engaged. Nonetheless, the truth that they amplify comparable content material can result in kids being influenced by growing quantities of dangerous materials.
The watchdog mentioned it’s probing how Chinese language firm ByteDance’s short-form video-sharing platform TikTok makes use of 13–17-year-olds’ private data to counsel content material of their feed.
Social media and dialogue platform Reddit, and Imgur are being investigated over how they assess the age of kid customers, it mentioned.
“If we discover there’s adequate proof that any of those firms have damaged the regulation, we’ll put this to them and acquire their representations earlier than reaching a last conclusion,” the Data Commissioner’s Workplace mentioned in a press release.
In 2023, the ICO fined TikTok GBP 12.7 million ($16 million or roughly Rs. 139 crore) for breaching knowledge safety regulation by utilizing the private knowledge of kids aged beneath 13 with out parental consent.
Reddit has been working intently with the ICO and intends to adjust to all related laws within the international locations through which it operates, a spokesperson from the corporate instructed Reuters in an e-mail.
“Most of our customers are adults, however we’ve got plans to roll out modifications this yr that tackle updates to UK laws round age assurance,” the Reddit spokesperson mentioned.
ByteDance, TikTok and Imgur didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
Britain has handed laws that set harder guidelines for social media platforms, together with a mandate for them to stop kids from accessing dangerous and age-inappropriate content material by imposing age limits and age-checking measures.
Social media platforms together with Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are required to “tame” their algorithms to filter out or downgrade dangerous materials to assist defend kids beneath proposed British measures revealed final yr.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
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