TikTok fined $370 million over handling of children’s data in Europe

DUBLIN — TikTok has been fined 345 million euros ($370 million) for breaching privacy laws regarding the processing of children’s personal data in the European Union, its lead regulator in the bloc said on Friday.

The Chinese-owned short-video platform, which has grown rapidly among teenagers around the world in recent years, breached a number of EU privacy laws between July 31, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) said in a statement.

It is the first time ByteDance-owned TikTok has been reprimanded by the DPC, the lead regulator in the European Union for many of the world’s top tech firms due to the location of their regional headquarters in Ireland.

A spokesperson for TikTok said it disagreed with the decision, particularly the size of the fine, and that most of the criticisms are no longer relevant as a result of measures it introduced before the DPC’s probe began in September 2021.

3 months to comply

The DPC said TikTok’s breaches included how in 2020 accounts for users under the age of 16 were set to “public” by default and that TikTok did not verify whether a user was actually a child user’s parent or guardian when linked through the “family pairing” feature.

TikTok added tougher parental controls to family pairing in November 2020 and changed the default setting for all registered users under the age of 16 to “private” in January 2021.

TikTok said on Friday it plans to further update its privacy materials to make the differences between public and private accounts clearer and that a private account will be preselected for new 16 to 17-year-old users when they register for the app from later this month.

The DPC gave TikTok three months to bring all its processing into compliance where infringements were found.

It has a second probe open into the transferring by TikTok of personal data to China and whether it complies with EU data law when moving personal data to countries outside the bloc. In March, the DPC said it was preparing a preliminary draft decision into that investigation.

Two-year inquiry

Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018, the lead regulator for any given company can impose fines of up to 4 percent of the company’s global revenue.

The DPC has hit other tech giants with big fines, including a combined 2.5 billion euros levied on Meta. It had 22 inquiries open into multinationals based in Ireland at the end of 2022.

The fine is the culmination of a two-year inquiry by the Irish watchdog, which plays a key role in policing the bloc’s strict GDPR.The regulator highlighted in its ruling Friday how children signing up had TikTok accounts set to public by default, meaning anyone could view or comment on their content.

It also criticized TikTok’s “family pairing” mode, which is designed to link parents’ accounts to those of their teenage offspring, but the DPC found the company did not verify parent or guardian status.

17M accounts deleted

TikTok is extremely popular among young people, with 150 million users in the United States and 134 million in the European Union.

In response to the fine, TikTok said it “respectfully disagrees” with the verdict and was “evaluating” how to proceed.

“The DPC’s criticisms are focused on features and settings that were in place three years ago, and that we made changes to well before the investigation even began, such as setting all under 16 accounts to private by default,” a TikTok spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The platform insists that it closely monitors the age of its users and takes action when needed.

TikTok says it deleted almost 17 million accounts worldwide in the first three months of this year due to suspicions that they belonged to people under 13 years old.

Friday’s fine comes after the Europen Union last week unveiled a list of digital giants—including Apple, Facebook owner Meta and ByteDance—that will face tough new curbs on how they do business.

Agence France-Presse

Influencers overtaking journalists as news source: report

PARIS — TikTok influencers and celebrities are increasingly taking over from journalists as the main source of news for young people, according to a report published Wednesday by the Britain-based Reuters Institute.

The report found that 55 percent of TikTok and Snapchat users and 52 percent of Instagram users get their news from "personalities" -- compared to 33 to 42 percent who get it from mainstream media and journalists on those platforms, which are most popular among the young.

The figures were based on interviews with some 94,000 people across 46 countries, conducted for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of Britain's University of Oxford.

"While mainstream journalists often lead conversations around news in Twitter and Facebook, they struggle to get attention in newer networks like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok," the report said.

Lead author Nic Newman highlighted people like Britain's Matt Welland, who discusses current affairs and daily life on TikTok for his 2.8 million subscribers.

"Or it could be a celebrity like a footballer talking about a topical news event," he told AFP, such as footballer Marcus Rashford's 2020 campaign to get free school meals for children from poor families.

For young people, "news" is not just the traditional focus on politics and international relations, but "anything new that is happening in any walk of life: sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, current affairs, culture, arts, technology..." he added.

'FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE'

Facebook remains the leading source of news among social networks worldwide, but its influence is dropping, with 28 percent saying they use it to get news, compared with 42 percent in 2016.

This likely reflects Facebook's shift away from news-sharing towards a focus on friends and family, as well as young people's preference for more video-based apps like TikTok and YouTube.

TikTok now reaches 44 percent of 18-24-year-olds, and 20 percent get their news from the app, up five percent on last year.

The biggest challenge for traditional news outlets is the falling number who go direct to their websites -- just 22 percent, down 10 points since 2018 -- rather than relying on social media links.

In his foreword, Reuters Institute director Rasmus Kleis Nielsen said this shift presented "a much more fundamental change" for the news industry than even the shift from paper to digital a generation ago.

"Legacy media... now face a continual transformation of digital as generations come of age who eschew direct discovery for all but the most appealing brands, (and) have little interest in many conventional news offers oriented towards older generations' habits, interests, and values," he said.

These new audiences are aware of the risks of relying on algorithms, with only 30 percent thinking this is a good way to get a balanced diet of news -- but that is still considered better than relying on journalists, who scored just 27 percent.

None of this is good news for media firms reliant on subscribers and ad revenue.

The report found that 39 percent of subscribers had canceled or renegotiated subscriptions, though the overall share of people paying for news across 20 countries surveyed remained stable compared with last year at 17 percent.

Agence France-Presse

US tells ByteDance to sell TikTok or be banned: report

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - The US government has told China-based ByteDance to sell its shares in the blockbuster TikTok app or face a national ban, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Western powers, including the European Union and the United States, have been taking an increasingly tough approach to the app, citing fears user data could be used or abused by Chinese officials.

Concern here ramped up earlier this year after a Chinese spy balloon was shot down in US airspace.

The White House last week welcomed a bill that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

A bipartisan bill "would empower the United States government to prevent certain foreign governments from exploiting technology services... in a way that poses risks to Americans' sensitive data and our national security," Sullivan said.

The Senate bill and the backing of the White House accelerated the political momentum against TikTok, which is also the target of a separate piece of legislation in the US House of Representatives.

Appearing tough on China is one of the rare issues with potential for bipartisan support in both the Republican-run House and the Senate, where Biden's Democratic Party holds a majority.

TikTok claims it has more than a billion users worldwide including over 100 million in the US, where it has become a cultural force, especially for young people.

Activists argue a ban would be an attack on free speech, and stifle the export of American culture and values to TikTok users around the world.

US government workers in January were banned from installing TikTok on their devices.

Civil servants in the European Union, as well as in Canada are also barred from having TikTok on their phones.

According to the Journal report, the ultimatum to TikTok came from the US agency charged with assessing risks foreign investments represent to national security.

US officials as well as TikTok declined to comment on the report.

TikTok has consistently denied sharing data with Chinese officials, and says it has been working with the US for nearly two years to address national security concerns.

Time spent by users on TikTok has surpassed that spent on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and is closing in on streaming television titan Netflix, according to market tracker Insider Intelligence.

Agence France-Presse

White House gives federal agencies 30 days to enforce TikTok ban

WASHINGTON — The White House on Monday gave federal agencies 30 days to purge Chinese-owned video-snippet sharing app TikTok from all government-issued devices, setting a deadline to comply with a ban ordered by the US Congress.

Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young in a memorandum called on government agencies within 30 days to "remove and disallow installations" of the application on agency-owned or operated IT devices, and to "prohibit internet traffic" from such devices to the app.

The ban does not apply to businesses in the United States not associated with the federal government, or to the millions of private citizens who use the hugely popular app.

However, a recently introduced bill in Congress would "effectively ban TikTok" in this country, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"Congress must not censor entire platforms and strip Americans of their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression," ACLU senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a release.

"We have a right to use TikTok and other platforms to exchange our thoughts, ideas, and opinions with people around the country and around the world."

Owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, TikTok has become a political target due to concerns the app can be circumvented for spying or propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The company did not immediately respond to the White House guidance.

China's foreign ministry slammed the ban.

"We firmly oppose the wrong practice of the United States to generalize the concept of national security, abuse state power, and unreasonably suppress firms from other countries," spokeswoman Mao Ning said Tuesday.

The law signed by US President Joe Biden last month bans the use of TikTok on government-issued devices. It also bans TikTok use in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

National security concerns over alleged Chinese spying have grown over the past month after a Chinese balloon traversed US airspace and was eventually shot down.

CANADA, EU BANS

The Canadian government on Monday banned TikTok from all of its phones and other devices, citing fears about how much access Beijing has to user data.

Effective Tuesday, "the TikTok application will be removed from government-issued mobile devices. Users of these devices will also be blocked from downloading the application in the future," the government said in a statement.

The European Commission banned the app from its equipment too.

TikTok has repeatedly rejected accusations it shares data or cedes control to the Chinese government. 

TikTok's breakneck rise from a niche video-sharing app to global social media behemoth has brought plenty of scrutiny, particularly over its links to China.

The company was forced to admit ByteDance employees in China had accessed Americans' data but it has always denied turning over personal information to the Chinese authorities.

TikTok has moved to soothe US fears, announcing in June 2022 that it would store all data on American users on US-based servers.

Bans have not halted TikTok's growth.

With more than one billion active users, it is the sixth-most used social platform in the world, according to the We Are Social marketing agency.

Although it lags behind the likes of Meta's long-dominant trio of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, its growth among young people far outstrips its competitors.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook use plunges among US teens: survey

US teens have left Facebook in droves over the past seven years, preferring to spend time at video-sharing venues YouTube and TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey data out Wednesday. 

TikTok has "emerged as a top social media platform for US teens" while Google-run YouTube "stands out as the most common platform used by teens," the report's authors wrote.

Pew's data comes as Facebook-owner Meta is in a battle with TikTok for social media primacy, trying to keep the maximum number of users as part of its multi-billion dollar ad-driven business.

The report said some 95 percent of the teens surveyed said they use YouTube, compared with 67 percent saying they are TikTok users.

Just 32 percent of teens surveyed said they log on to Facebook -- a big drop from the 71 percent who reported being users during a similar survey some seven years ago.

Once the place to be online, Facebook has become seen as a venue for older folks with young drawn to social networks where people express themselves with pictures and video snippets.

About 62 percent of the teens said they use Instagram, owned by Facebook-parent Meta, while 59 percent said they used Snapchat, researchers stated.

"A quarter of teens who use Snapchat or TikTok say they use these apps almost constantly, and a fifth of teen YouTube users say the same," the report said.

In a bit of good news for Meta's business, its photo and video sharing service Instagram was more popular with US teens than it was in the 2014-2015 survey.

Meanwhile, less than a quarter of the teens surveyed said they ever use Twitter, the report said.

The study also confirmed what casual observers may have suspected, 95 percent of US teens say they have smartphones, while nearly as many of them have desktop or laptop computers.

And the share of teens who say they are online almost constantly has nearly doubled to 46 percent when compared to survey results from seven years ago, researchers noted.

The report was based on a survey of 1,316 US teens, ranging in age from 13 years old to 17 years old, conducted from mid-April to early May of this year, according to Pew.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook tweaks app with eye on rival TikTok

Facebook has split the news feed in two on its app, a significant change that mimics the experience on its fiercest competitor, hugely popular TikTok. 

One of the feeds unveiled Thursday is a chronological flow from the user's connections and the other option includes algorithm-driven recommendations on anything that might interest them.

The recommendations focus makes Facebook more similar to TikTok's "For You" feed, where the booming video app's algorithm aims to determine what people want to see and shows it to them.

These changes come as Facebook-owner Meta is in a battle with TikTok for social media primacy, trying to keep the maximum number of users as part of its multi-billion dollar ad-driven business.

Facebook apps will open to a personalized feed of posts called "Home", where artificial intelligence will offer posts from friends but also recommended content, the social network said.

"This system takes into account thousands of signals to help cut through the clutter and rank content in the order we think you will find most valuable," Meta said.

But if users would rather just see posts in reverse chronological order from their contacts, they can tap on the "Feeds" tab, an experience that echoes Facebook's early days.

The idea is for the "Home" page greeting Facebook users to be a venue for new content and recommendations, while the "Feeds" section is reserved for posts by people or groups someone has established connections with, according to the social network.

The firm reported early this year its first dip in daily users globally on the signature Facebook platform, a worrying signal about its future.

Meta is also working to re-orient itself after a string of controversies, including a whistleblower's claims the company put profits before users' safety.

Agence France-Presse

YouTube Shorts touts 1.5 billion users, taking on TikTok

YouTube on Wednesday said that more than 1.5 billion people monthly tune into its Shorts video service, which competes with global sensation TikTok.

Alphabet-owned YouTube and Facebook-parent Meta both added short-form video sharing formats to their services after TikTok -- which late last year said it topped a billion users -- became the rage.

YouTube Shorts went live less than two years ago, adding videos of no longer than 60 seconds to the mix of offerings on the platform.

"Shorts has really taken off and are now being watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month," said YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan.

"We know the product will continue to be an integral part of the YouTube experience moving forward."

YouTube last year launched a $100 million fund to "reward creators" whose video clips attract audiences to the online stage.

YouTube has also put the Silicon Valley tech titan's advertising skills to work helping creators generate income from content on the platform, which brought in billions of dollars in revenue in 2021.

Creators are taking advantage of podcasting, shorts, and live streaming on YouTube in a "multi-platform approach," said vice president of the Americas Tara Walpert Levy.

"This approach is yielding real results; channels uploading both short and long-form content are seeing better overall watch time and subscriber growth than those uploading only one format," Levy said.

She billed YouTube as a one-stop-shop for people to "flex their creative muscles."

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, early this year began letting users upload slightly longer videos, raising the maximum length to 10 minutes from 3 minutes.

YouTube, Meta, and TikTok compete to be the platform of preference from popular online personalities with revenue-making features such as subscriptions or shares in ad revenue.

Agence France-Presse

Music fans spend more time listening to tunes during pandemic, says study

LONDON—Music fans globally are spending more time listening to tunes, about 18.4 hours a week on average, and have turned to their favorite artists for comfort during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey published on Thursday.

IFPI, the recorded music industry's representative body, said the figure, which equates to listening to 368 3-minute songs, is up from 18 hours in 2019, with listeners mostly turning to subscription audio streaming, video streaming, the radio and short form video apps such as TikTok.

The "Engaging with Music 2021" study, described by IFPI as the largest of its kind, is based on the views of 43,000 music fans in 21 countries.

  

"The research finds that not only are fans listening to more music, but that they are also seizing opportunities to engage with new, dynamic, and immersive music experiences," IFPI Chief Executive Frances Moore said in the report.

"Fuelled by record labels’ investment, the incredible abundance and growth of music licensed to streaming services is driving this engagement...In addition, music has provided fans with comfort and healing through these challenging times."

Fans have resorted to streaming for the autonomy and choice, with music listening time through subscription audio streaming rising 51%, the study found, while 68% of those surveyed said they searched for specific songs more than once a week.

Short-form videos, livestreaming and in-game experiences were also popular: the study found one in three people saying they had watched a music livestream in the last year.

When it came to genres, more than 300 different kinds of music were named as music people listened to, with examples including electronic dance gqom, from South Africa, and axé, which originated in Brazil in the 1980s.

Around 87% said music lifted their spirits during the pandemic while 68% of 16- to 19-year olds said new releases from their favourite singers soothed them during the pandemic.

Highlighting the problem of unlicensed music, almost one in three people surveyed - or 29% - said they had used illegal or unlicensed methods to listen to or download tunes. (Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian Editing by Mark Heinrich)

-reuters-

Facebook and Instagram will invest over $1 billion in content creators

Facebook Inc will spend $1 billion on social media creators through the end of 2022 in a fight for top talent announced in a week when TikTok became the first rival mobile app to hit 3 billion global downloads.

Facebook's investments will include bonus programs to pay creators who hit certain milestones on its apps, including photo-sharing service Instagram, and fund users to produce content, the company said.

The social media giant is opening its wallet to woo creators with major fan followings from platforms like Alphabet Inc's YouTube and short video app TikTok.

Multiple major tech platforms are on the offensive to attract and keep social media personalities with new payments and services.

TikTok has committed to spending $2 billion to support creators over three years. Snap Inc's Snapchat used to pay creators a total of $1 million per day to post popular short-form videos on its service and says it still distributes millions per month to support creators through its Spotlight program.

"With the 3 billion install milestone, TikTok is the fifth non-game app to join a tier that's historically been the exclusive domain of Facebook," said mobile insights firm Sensor Tower in a Tuesday report.

Facebook said its bonuses so far are by invitation only. On its main platform video creators and online gamers will receive a monthly bonus if they hit milestones like broadcasting a certain number of hours to earn Stars, a form of digital tipping that fans can use to pay their favorite creators during live-streamed videos.

Instagram's bonus programs will include incentives to use Reels, its copycat TikTok feature that showcases short-form video clips. Creators will earn money based on how their Reels videos perform, the company said.

-reuters-

TikTok Sounds used to spread COVID vaccine misinformation - think tank

A TikTok feature that allows users to add another person's audio to their videos is being used to promote misleading and harmful content about COVID-19 vaccines, a think tank said in a new report.

The London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue analyzed 124 videos that used speech from four original TikTok videos, including two that were removed by the company for breaking its COVID misinformation rules, to push misinformation and stoke fears about vaccine side-effects. The 124 videos had more than 20 million views.

"There's a part of the content which is still able to travel," said Ciaran O'Connor, an analyst at the counter-extremism think tank. He likened the spread of misinformation though TikTok's "Sounds" feature to WhatsApp audio messages that proliferated during the pandemic.

Viral trends where users create their own videos by riffing off the same music or speech clip are a central part of TikTok. The popular social video platform, which saw explosive growth during the pandemic, said it reviews the audio of rule-breaking videos and may prevent these being used as Sounds by other users. It said these cases were caused by human content moderation errors. It also said Sounds can be reported on the app.

Audio from one video of a user implying the COVID vaccine's fast development made it unsafe and making misleading comparisons to other illnesses has been used in more than 4,500 videos, ISD found.

TikTok said it had previously limited the distribution of videos using this Sound, rather than remove it completely, as it was only deemed to be potentially misleading. Even so, the top 25 videos on the TikTok page for this Sound have been viewed a total of 16.7 million times.

ISD found many of the videos used the Sound to signal support for the statement. TikTok said it took down some of the videos using the Sound and made the Sound more difficult to find in searches after reviewing the report's findings. It removed the three other Sounds identified in the report.

"We strive to promote an authentic TikTok experience by limiting the spread of misleading content, including audio, and promoting authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines across our app," a TikTok spokesperson said.

ISD found the app had added labels directing to authoritative COVID information on only two of the 124 videos. The company said this was because labels were only added on videos with specific hashtags.

TikTok last week announced changes to its content-moderation systems for certain content, moving to fully automated reviewing systems for categories like nudity and violent or graphic material. (Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Editing by Stephen Coates)

-reuters-

TikTok owner ByteDance's 2020 revenue soars, net loss at $45 billion

BEIJING - TikTok owner ByteDance's total revenue more than doubled last year to $34.3 billion but its net loss widened to $45 billion, according to a company memo seen by Reuters.

The widening of the loss was partly attributable to accounting norms for share-based compensation of employees, a person familiar with the matter said.

Reuters has reported that ByteDance, one of the world's biggest private tech companies with an estimated value of about $300 billion in recent trades, had a revenue goal of around $30 billion for 2020.

ByteDance posted an operating loss of $2 billion and a gross profit of $19 billion, representing a 93 percent growth year over year, the company told employees in a staff meeting, upon which the memo was based.

Beijing-based ByteDance declined to comment on its financials.

It had 1.9 billion global monthly users in December 2020 for all its apps including TikTok, its Chinese version Douyin and news aggregator Jinri Toutiao.

In May, company founder Zhang Yiming unexpectedly announced that he will step down as CEO, a move that comes as Chinese regulators are increasing scrutiny of the country's biggest technology firms. 

-reuters-

Biden drops plan to ban Chinese-owned apps TikTok, WeChat

President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked executive orders from his predecessor Donald Trump seeking to ban Chinese-owned mobile apps TikTok and WeChat over national security concerns, the White House said.

A statement said that instead of banning the popular apps, the Biden administration would carry out a "criteria-based decision framework and rigorous, evidence-based analysis to address the risks" from internet applications controlled by foreign entities.

Trump had claimed the apps posed national security risks and had sought to force the sale of TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance and remains one of the world's most popular social media apps, to US investors.

The effort by the Trump administration prompted a series of legal challenges which delayed the efforts to ban or force the sale of the applications, which heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.

There was no immediate comment from the two companies.

Biden issued a new executive order citing an "ongoing emergency" related to "the continuing effort of foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons' data" and calling for a four-month review.

University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney, who follows national security issues, called the Biden order "a good middle path."

"They affirmed the nature of the threat and the propriety of using sanctions to address it, and they have held the door open for reimposing some version of these sanctions... but likely with a far stronger and more defensible record," Chesney tweeted.

But officials said that Biden's order stopped short of rescinding a review of the 2017 acquisition of TikTok forerunner Musical.ly by ByteDance.

"It would be premature to celebrate; Bytedance remains subject to an entirely separate CFIUS divestment order," Chesney said in a blog post, referring to the intergovernmental Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is carrying out the review.

"Today's action by President Biden does nothing to change that. Of course, it could be that this too will change," he added.

Finding 'unacceptable risks' -

Biden's order seeks to identify any "connected software applications that may pose an unacceptable risk to US national security and the American people" including "applications that are owned, controlled, or managed by persons that support foreign adversary military or intelligence activities, or are involved in malicious cyber activities, or involve applications that collect sensitive personal data."

The new order calls for the Commerce Department and other federal agencies to develop guidelines "to protect sensitive personal data... including personally identifiable information and genetic information" from misuse.

TikTok is believed to have some one billion users worldwide including more than 100 million in the United States, and is especially popular with young smartphone users.

Last September, US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary injunction at the request of TikTok blocking the effort to ban downloads of the app in the United States.

Trump had given his blessing to a plan that would have given TikTok to US tech giant Oracle with investments from retail powerhouse Walmart, but that deal failed to win approval in Beijing.

WeChat, part of the Chinese tech giant Tencent, is a massively popular "super app" which includes social networking, messaging, e-commerce and more.

The ban on WeChat was also delayed by a lawsuit from users based in the United States claiming the ban infringed on their rights.

The Biden move comes a day after the US Senate passed a sweeping industrial policy bill aimed at countering the surging economic threat from China and pumping more than $170 billion into research and development.

The package, a key provision of which addresses a shortage of semiconductors that has slowed US auto production this year, will help American industry bolster its capacity and improve technology, in an effort to avoid being outmaneuvered by Beijing as the adversaries compete for tech leadership.

Agence France-Presse

ByteDance says India's freeze on bank accounts is harassment - court filing

MUMBAI - China's ByteDance has told an Indian court that a government freeze on its bank accounts in a probe of possible tax evasion amounts to harassment and was done illegally, according to a filing seen by Reuters.

ByteDance in January reduced its Indian workforce after New Delhi maintained a ban on its popular video app TikTok, imposed last year after a border clash between India and China. Beijing has repeatedly criticized India over that ban and those of other Chinese apps.

An Indian tax intelligence unit in mid-March ordered HSBC and Citibank in Mumbai to freeze bank accounts of ByteDance India as it probed some of the unit's financial dealings. ByteDance has challenged the freeze on the four accounts in a Mumbai court.

None of ByteDance India's employees have been paid their March salaries due to the account freeze, said two people familiar with the matter. The company told the court it has a workforce of 1,335, including outsourced personnel.

In the 209-page court filing lodged on March 25, ByteDance told the High Court in Mumbai the authorities acted against the company without any material evidence and gave no prior notice, as required by Indian law, before such "drastic action".

Blocking accounts "during the process of investigation amounts (to) applying undue coercion," ByteDance argued. It is "intended, improperly, to harass the petitioner."

India's Directorate General of Goods & Services Tax Intelligence, and the finance ministry which oversees it, did not immediately respond to requests for comment over the weekend.

The details of the tax investigation have not previously been reported. The tax agency told ByteDance last year it had reasons to believe the company suppressed certain transactions and claimed excessive tax credits, the filing shows.

ByteDance declined to comment on its court filing but told Reuters on Tuesday it disagrees with the decision of the tax authority. HSBC declined to comment, while Citibank did not respond.

ADVERTISING, OTHER DEALS SCRUTINISED

The court declined to grant ByteDance immediate relief in a brief hearing on Wednesday. The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

The investigation centres on potential evasion of taxes related to online advertising and other financial dealings between ByteDance India and its parent entity in Singapore, TikTok Pte Ltd. TikTok did not respond to an email seeking comment.

ByteDance told the court its India workforce includes 800 people working in its "trust and safety" team that supports activities like content moderation overseas.

The company has "robust business plans in India and is not contemplating winding up," it said, urging the court to lift the freeze on the accounts.

The tax agency started investigating the company in July. It inspected documents at the company's office and summoned and questioned at least three executives, the filing says. Authorities also asked ByteDance to submit documents, including invoices and agreements signed with some clients.

ByteDance representatives "appeared multiple times" before tax officers and provided documents, the filing says.

TikTok, one of India's most popular video apps before it was banned, has faced scrutiny around the world.

Under then-President Donald Trump, the United States alleged the app posed national security concerns. The new administration of Joe Biden has paused a government lawsuit that could have resulted in a de facto ban on TikTok's use there.

-reuters-

YouTube brings TikTok-style Shorts to United States

YouTube on Thursday started rolling out an early version of its Shorts quick-clip feature in the United States, ramping up its challenge to TikTok.

The popularity of YouTube Shorts soared during testing in India, and it has been racking up more than 6.5 billion views a day by people tuning in overall, according to product lead Todd Sherman of the Google-owned video service.

"We're introducing our YouTube Shorts Beta to the United States starting today, as we continue to build the experience alongside our global community," Sherman said.

"We plan to introduce more features as we continue to build Shorts alongside creators and artists."

YouTube is also working on ways for people to make money from audiences at Shorts, according to Sherman.

The new service is the latest to challenge the fast-growing Chinese-owned TikTok, which has faced scrutiny over its ties to the Beijing government.

Netflix early this month added a "Fast Laughs" feature to its iPhone app, serving up comic clips in rapid fire, in a move taking on the popular video app TikTok.

Facebook-owned Instagram responded to TikTok's popularity with their own short video format called Reels last August. 

And in November, Snapchat launched Spotlight, a public feed of content produced by users.

Agence France-Presse 

US seeks data on how Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and others use personal data

WASHINGTON - The Federal Trade Commission is seeking information from Facebook, Twitter and other social media and video streaming companies about how they use the personal information that they collect on their users, the U.S. agency said on Monday.

In addition to Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc, the orders requesting data were sent to Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp, Amazon.com Inc, China's ByteDance unit TikTok, Discord Inc, Reddit Inc, Snap Inc, and Google subsidiary YouTube LLC.

The FTC is seeking to learn how the companies collect data on users, how they decide which advertisements to show and how algorithms are used, among other information, the agency said in a statement. It is also seeking information about how the companies' practices affect children and teenagers.

The companies have 45 days to respond to the orders, which are usually used to generate policy or recommend legislation.

In a joint statement, two Democratic members of the commission, Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter, and one Republican, Christine Wilson, noted their impetus for the order.

"Never before has there been an industry capable of surveilling and monetizing so much of our personal lives," they wrote. "Social media and video streaming companies now follow users everywhere through apps on their always-present mobile devices. This constant access allows these firms to monitor where users go, the people with whom they interact, and what they are doing. ... Too much about the industry remains dangerously opaque.

Discord said it looked forward to answering the FTC's questions. "We make no money from advertising, selling user data to advertisers, or sharing users' personal information with others. Instead, the company generates its revenue directly from users through a paid subscription service," a spokesperson said in an email statement.

None of the other companies immediately responded to a request for comment. 

(Reporting by Diane Bartz Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Richard Chang)

-reuters-

TikTok rival Triller weighs going public

NEW YORK, United States - Triller, an app similar to TikTok that allows users to share short video clips online, is in talks with several companies about a possible merger that would allow them to go public on Wall Street, a source close to the discussions said Monday. 

The group was looking to raise capital from private investors when it was approached by several special purpose acquisition companies, a kind of publicly listed shell company that aims to merge with promising start-ups, the source told AFP. 

The sudden interest coincided with a crackdown on TikTok by President Donald Trump, who has threatened to ban the Chinese-owned social media giant if it doesn't hand over control of its US business to an American company by Nov. 12, citing national security concerns.

TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is in negotiations with Silicon Valley company Oracle and retail giant Walmart over its US operations, which include some 100 million users.

The talks are taking place against a backdrop of increasing friction after Trump accused the company, without providing proof, of spying on US users for Beijing. 

Triller, launched in 2015, says it currently has 65 million monthly users around the world.

Its subscribers, which include celebrities such as Alicia Keys, Lil Wayne and Snoop Dogg, can easily pick music to go with a video clip.

The Los Angeles-based company is being advised by the merchant bank Farvahar Partners.

Its main shareholder is Proxima Media, which is currently valued at $1.25 billion, according to the same source.

The business is evaluating its various options, and there is no guarantee it will go public, the source said.

Neither Triller nor Farvahar Partners responded to an AFP request for comment.

Agence France-Presse

YouTube tests TikTok rival in India

SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube on Monday began testing a TikTok rival in India, saying it would refine its short video format and roll it out in more countries in coming months.

YouTube Shorts made its debut as TikTok pursues a partnership with Oracle that it hopes will spare it from being shut-down in the US by President Donald Trump.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday confirmed a bid from Oracle concerning TikTok's American operations after the video-sharing app's parent ByteDance rejected a proposal from Microsoft.

But it remained unclear whether the venture would pass muster with Washington regulators.

"Shorts is a new short-form video experience for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones," YouTube vice president of product management Chris Jaffe said in a blog.

"Over the next few days in India, we're launching an early beta of Shorts with a handful of new creation tools to test this out."

YouTube Shorts videos are limited to 15 seconds, according to the Google-owned platform used by some 2 billion people worldwide.

Jaffe noted that Shorts will be modified based on user feedback before being made more broadly available.

TikTok's brand of brief, quirky videos made on users' cellphones has grown hugely popular.

But Trump's claims that TikTok could be used by China to track US federal employees, build dossiers for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage has sparked a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing.

TikTok has rejected the charges and sued over the crackdown, contending that the US order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

Trump effectively ordered the sale of the Chinese company's US operations by September 20, after which the app would shut down.

Agence France-Presse

The woman taking over TikTok at the toughest time

Six weeks ago, as TikTok grappled with escalating tensions between the United States and China, the social media app’s top executives huddled together to figure out their next steps.

Vanessa Pappas, 41, was worried. TikTok’s North American business, which she has run since 2018, was dealing with an uproar. President Donald Trump had threatened to ban TikTok because of its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and many of the more than 100 million people who use TikTok in the United States were up in arms.

So in the early hours of Aug. 1, Pappas recorded a 59-second video from her home office in Los Angeles to calm the creators on TikTok and its fans. “We’ve heard your outpouring of support, and we wanted to say thank you,” she said in the video, which quickly went viral under the hashtag #SaveTikTok. “We’re not planning on going anywhere.”

Pappas is now repeating that message as she lands in an even hotter hot seat. Last month, Kevin Mayer, TikTok’s chief executive, said he was leaving the company, citing its uncertain political status. Pappas was appointed TikTok’s interim global head, just as the app faces an even murkier future.

Under an executive order from Trump, ByteDance must essentially strike a deal to sell off TikTok’s U.S. operations by Sept. 20; it will have a few weeks after that to close a sale. Yet after weeks of negotiations with potential buyers such as Microsoft, Walmart and Oracle, the discussions were thrown into disarray when the Chinese government signaled that it would weigh in on TikTok’s future.

In a recent 30-minute interview over Zoom from her home, Pappas said TikTok’s predicament was “unique” and described what it was like to navigate it through “a challenging time.” She declined to discuss specifics about TikTok’s deal talks and said she was not involved in them.

Instead, Pappas said, she is focused on what TikTok’s future could look like if the app’s ownership is bifurcated. Most of all, she said, she is doubling down on putting TikTok’s community of creators and users — ranging from those who post videos of cake decorating to those who break dance — first. Pappas later added that she regularly talked to Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s founder and chief executive, about all of these issues.

To focus on its community, TikTok in July formed a Creator Fund, where creators can earn cash for views, starting with $200 million. And with the pandemic forcing people indoors for the foreseeable future, Pappas said she and her team were working on making TikTok an uplifting place to visit. Last month, the company launched a largest national advertising campaign on television and digital media, highlighting more than 30 popular creators under the tagline “It starts on TikTok.”

“We’ve built this product for hundreds of millions of people, and we’re not looking for that to change,” said Pappas, a former YouTube executive.

But keeping TikTok’s community happy in such a turbulent period may be challenging. Some creators and fans have been rattled by Trump’s moves against the app. Since his executive order, people in the United States have installed TikTok about 6.5 million times, down 13% from a year earlier, according to Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm.

Competitors have also pounced. Facebook introduced Reels, a TikTok clone inside Instagram, in August. The social network has also doled out millions of dollars to some of TikTok’s biggest stars to lure them over to using Reels.

Pappas said she wasn’t worried about Facebook and Instagram Reels. “You can certainly copy a feature, but you can’t copy a community,” she said. “I think that’s really hard to replicate.”

Tom Keiser, chief executive of Hootsuite, a social media management company, said TikTok was right to make its power users a priority.

“They need to be investing in those folks,” he said. “There’s so many things out of their control, but their future growth is based on influencers and content creators continuing to evolve and grow and leverage the new capabilities TikTok is rolling out.”

Pappas has worked in the online influencer world since some of its earliest days. Half Greek by birth, she grew up in Australia and speaks with an Aussie twang. She moved to London when she was 20, and eventually migrated to New York. In 2007, she joined Next New Networks, a company that helped web video creators earn money from their efforts.

YouTube bought Next New Networks in 2011. Pappas joined YouTube and quickly rose through the ranks. She was YouTube’s first audience development lead, a role that led her to connect with video makers. Her division at YouTube developed and popularized the term “creator” and helped transform video blogging, or vlogging, into a full-time job.

Pappas also wrote a book, “The YouTube Creator Playbook,” on how creators could make money from their followings, in 2011. She went on to develop YouTube’s Creator Academy, an educational content portal that teaches creators how to build a business on YouTube, and a channel certification program, which teaches creators about digital rights management, legal issues and advanced analytics.

TikTok lured her from YouTube at the end of 2018 to be its general manager and head of North America, based in Los Angeles. At the time, TikTok had just expanded globally. It was a new challenge for Pappas, who said she had wanted to get in on the ground floor of the next big creator movement.

Pappas said that unlike Facebook or Twitter, TikTok wasn’t wholly dependent on one’s social graph, or how many friends someone had. The app’s discovery algorithm instead surfaces popular trending content from people with followings both large and small, keeping users in the app longer and coming back more frequently.

“Anyone feels like they can be a creator,” said Greg Justice, TikTok’s head of content programming. “I’ve had friends with only a few followers who have gone viral.”

Justice, who works closely with Pappas, said that her leadership style was driven by data and that she often asked people to provide information to back up their projects and proposals. That helped the company avoid allowing dominant personalities and workplace politics dictate the way it was run, he said.

“She really democratizes the decision-making and leads to more objectivity at the company,” Justice said.

The American entertainment industry soon began reorienting itself around TikTok. Top Hollywood agents, casting directors and modeling scouts scoured the app for up-and-coming stars. Brands paid millions of dollars to tap into TikTok’s coveted Gen Z audience. Thousands of TikTok creators have made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles to live full time as creators.

The coronavirus has strengthened the ties among the TikTok community, Pappas said. Videos have trended under the #HappyAtHome hashtag, as creators riff off one another’s indoor experiments.

But Pappas has also had to deal with TikTok videos that are not all sunshine and rainbows. This month, a woman spoke out against TikTok for a viral meme in which thousands of users — including parents and their children — mocked people with physical disabilities across the platform.

TikTok noted that its community guidelines prohibit bullying and harassment, and encouraged its users to “exercise care and good judgment when it comes to the content they post, including parents and others who set an example through their behavior,” a spokeswoman said.

Nick Tangorra, 22, a TikTok creator with 1.2 million followers, said he had met Pappas only once but believed that she was the only tech leader who understood the creator community’s needs.

“It starts at the top,” he said. “TikTok knows fully that this app is what it is because of its creators. Vanessa is putting such an emphasis on creators, making sure we feel supported by the platform.”

-Mike Isaac and Taylor Lorenz, New York Times-

ByteDance in talks with US to avoid selling TikTok: report

SAN FRANCISCO - Chinese internet giant ByteDance is in talks with the US about ways it might avoid having to sell its TikTok operations here, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing, and President Donald Trump gave Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance -- effectively compelling a sale of the app to a US company.

Walmart has joined forces with Microsoft in negotiations to buy TikTok. Oracle is also reported to be interested in TikTok.

TikTok -- which has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world -- has filed a lawsuit challenging the crackdown by the US government.

The suit contends that Trump's order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

Trump claims that TikTok could be used by China to track the locations of federal employees, build dossiers on people for blackmail and conduct corporate espionage.

TikTok -- used by as many as a billion people worldwide to make quirky, short-form videos on their cellphones -- has repeatedly denied sharing data with Beijing.

Talks between ByteDance and the US have been taking place for months but have grown more urgent as the deadline set by Trump nears, according to the Journal report.

At least one of TikTok’s major investors was part of a group that met recently with representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency to discuss data security, the Journal reported, citing someone familiar with the matter.

Trump last week repeated his demand for a piece of the action from any sale of TikTok's US operations for forcing such a deal.

"Well, I told them that they have until September 15th to make a deal; after that, we close it up in this country," Trump told journalists.

"And I said that the United States has to be compensated -- well compensated -- because we are the ones that are making it possible, and so we should be compensated."

Critics have slammed Trump's call for the US government to get a cut of the deal, contending that it appears unconstitutional and akin to extortion.

Meanwhile, ByteDance has vowed to "strictly abide" by new export rules in China which could potentially complicate a sale of the business as demanded by Trump.

China's commerce ministry added "civilian use" to a list of technologies that are restricted for export.

The new regulations could make it more difficult for ByteDance to sell the wildly popular video app, which features clips of everything from dance routines and hair-dye tutorials to jokes about daily life and politics.

Agence France-Presse

Walmart teaming with Microsoft in bid for TikTok

SAN FRANCISCO - US retail giant Walmart said Thursday it had teamed with Microsoft in a bid to buy Chinese-owned short-form video app TikTok.

The app has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with its Chinese parent company ByteDance. 

The move effectively set a deadline for a sale of TikTok to a US company.

"We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of US TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of US government regulators," the retailer told AFP.

Walmart is likely interested in TikTok to better connect with younger shoppers who turn to the internet for lifestyle trends, according to analysts.

Younger people are much less likely to shop at Walmart, whether online or in real-world stores, according to GlobalData Retail managing director Neil Saunders.

"A social platform like TikTok would give Walmart easy access to the very audience it wants and needs to attract," Saunders said.

Having access to the social media sensation could help Walmart's marketing campaigns while tapping into "a rich seam of data" or product development and more, according to Saunders.

Walmart teaming with US technology colossus Microsoft was "the final piece of the puzzle that ultimately cements Microsoft successfully acquiring TikTok's US operations for likely $35 billion to $40 billion," according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

'HIGH-STAKES POKER'

"While deal negotiations will be complex with a number of technology and data privacy issues that need to be worked out before an agreement is inked, we believe ByteDance is playing a game of high stakes poker with Microsoft looking like the only true white knight around," Ives said in a note to investors.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said Wednesday he had quit the company as tensions soar between Washington and Beijing over the Chinese-owned video platform.

Mayer's departure was taken by some in the market as a sign that a deal to sell TikTok is imminent. Oracle is also said to be in the bidding

Mayer's resignation came just days after TikTok filed a lawsuit challenging a crackdown by the US government over claims the wildly popular social media app can be used to spy on Americans.

TikTok, which has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world, argued in the suit that Trump's order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The platform -- on which users share often playful short-form videos -- is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat," it said.

The platform's kaleidoscopic feeds of clips feature everything from dance routines and hair-dye tutorials to jokes about daily life and politics. 

The company holds firm that it has never provided any US user data to the Chinese government, and Beijing has blasted Trump's crackdown as political.

Agence France-Presse