The British online safety regulator Ofcom announced on Thursday that it has officially launched an investigation into the short video platform TikTok. The investigation aims to find out whether the platform has complied with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act to protect children from harmful online content.
The investigation focuses on two recent reports from the regulator on children's online experiences and age assurance. Ofcom pointed out in the report that the "age inference model" currently used by TikTok (that is, guessing the true age by analyzing the user's activity trajectory) lacks a high degree of effectiveness, which may lead to the platform failing to accurately identify child users in actual operations.
Under the strict provisions of the UK's Online Safety Act, major online platforms must adopt "highly effective" age verification measures to cut off children's access to harmful content. In the age assurance report just released on Wednesday, Ofcom clearly expressed concerns about TikTok's reliance on age guessing to confirm users' ages, and determined that this method did not meet the "highly effective" standard required by law.
If the investigation ultimately confirms that TikTok has indeed violated regulations, Ofcom will have the right to issue huge fines: the fine can be up to 18 million pounds, or equivalent to 10% of the platform's global annual turnover, and the penalty will be whichever is higher. The regulatory agency said it plans to announce the latest progress of the investigation in October this year.
In response to the above investigation, TikTok responded quickly. A platform spokesperson said: "We strictly follow the platform rules guided by experts and use advanced age prediction technology to ensure that users receive an age-appropriate experience, which is fully consistent with the standards of major industry peers."
The spokesperson further emphasized: "In the eight years since TikTok was put into operation in the UK market, our investment in platform security has reached billions. We are confident that we have fully fulfilled our obligations under the Online Security Act and will actively cooperate with Ofcom's investigation to prove this."