July 16 (Reuters) – Britain’s media regulator launched an investigation into TikTok on Thursday to understand whether its UK unit failed or is failing to protect children from harmful content.
A month ago, the government imposed a blanket ban on social media for users under the age of 16 and placed restrictions on gaming and live-streaming platforms.
Here are some more details on the investigation:
• Ofcom will look into whether the platform has measures to assess if a particular user is a child and adequate systems and processes to prevent children from viewing harmful content.
• In May, the regulator said TikTok had failed to set out meaningful steps to protect British children from harmful online content.
• The opening of an investigation does not mean that Ofcom has reached any conclusion about whether the provider has breached its duties, the regulator said.
• TikTok denied any breaches: “We strictly enforce age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and advanced age inference technologies, in line with major industry peers,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
• “We are confident that we meet our Online Safety Act obligations and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this.”
(Reporting by Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Philippa Fletcher)
