cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3693467

Chinese social media giant Bytedance was dealt a stinging blow last September when Ireland’s data privacy watchdog issued it a record $370 million fine over its failure to properly safeguard the personal data of children using its app TikTok. New corporate filings suggest that Bytedance expects more fines like this to come. The company has explicitly set aside $1 billion to cover future fines from European privacy regulators.

Bytedance has faced a barrage of lawsuits and investigations from regulators around the world over TikTok’s addictive design, handling of user data and lack of safeguards for teenage users. Only yesterday, the attorneys general of thirteen states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits claiming that TikTok was designed to be used compulsively and had harmed children and teens as a result.

The $1 billion provision for future fines was revealed in corporate accounts for TikTok’s European operations filed this week with the United Kingdom’s Companies House. The accounts also showed that TikTok’s European revenues surged to $4.57 billion last year, up from $2.6 billion in 2022. Its losses have also nearly tripled to $1.3 billion in 2023, up from $512 million.

[…]

The scale of total fines and penalties facing TikTok on the European continent could be even larger than the $1 billion provision in its 2023 accounts. The European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) in February 2024. The European Union can fine companies up to 6% of global revenue for breaches of the DSA, or impose a ban.

  • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    741·
    1 month ago

    If the punishment for a crime is a fine, then it’s only a crime for poor people and small businesses.

    We need to see prison sentences for anyone involved in making the decisions to commit crimes and the platform needs to face banishment.

    • WhatThaFudge@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      18·
      1 month ago

      Like speeding tickets.

      As a rich person you are fine to endanger the rest of the people on the road for a small fee. As a company it is fine to violate laws and rights of people for a small fee.

      It’s cool as long as the government gets their cut!

      • vaionko@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        1 month ago

        Income based fines need to become the standard everywhere. Like here in Finland a businessman got fined 121000€ for going 30km/h over the speed limit.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      1 month ago

      Yeah, they should have learned from all those other corporate criminals that never experienced actual consequences

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      291·
      1 month ago

      Because it’s only loss.

      If you throw a bunch of investments or R&D costs into this year, you can all of a sudden have a huge financial loss while having positive cashflow.

      Same is true for buying other companies, depreciation and other fuckery with stuff like “goodwill”… or you just paid off a massive loan to an actual creditor, bought back stocks, or moved cash to your offshore holding to dodge taxes (in the form of renting your own IP from your own company in said tax haven)… The list is nearly endless.

      The point is, in most countries a loss can be spread out over multiple years to offset profits. Meaning you don’t have to pay taxes on the profits.

    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 month ago

      It’s literally in the last paragraph of the summary. You didn’t even have to click the article. The EU can fine up to 6% of the global revenue.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    313·
    1 month ago

    I’ve a feeling we’re ry going to regret all this anti Chinese nonsense in the future, I think Google etc have already sealed their ultimate fates.

    The Huawei thing might well go down as one of the worst mistakes in history.

    For anyone wondering I’m UK not Chinese completely white from Belfast.

    • MaggiWuerzeEnglish
      71·
      1 month ago

      The only thing we’re going to regret, in fact already are, is sucking up to them for the last decades, while allowing them to steal every bit of manufacturing know how we had for some cheap labor

      • MajorSauce@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21·
        1 month ago

        Economic “principles” pushed manufacturing their way, they just played the game and played it well.