TikTok loses legal fight in Europe; may still face US and EU bans

TikTok has lost its fight to be excluded from a European antitrust law, and says that it will comply. However, it still faces a potential ban in the EU for breaching child protection legislation, and a separate ruling on its future in the US has yet to be made …

TikTok has been facing potential bans in both the US and Europe.

TikTok loses court case in Europe

Within Europe, the app was deemed to have enough users to be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust law. Parent company Bytedance had challenged this in court, but Bloomberg reports that it has now lost this case.

TikTok lost the first legal challenge to the European Union’s crackdown on Big Tech, after judges said the Chinese social media platform can’t escape a new law reining in the likes of Google and Apple Inc.

The EU’s General Court said TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. is powerful enough to be covered by the bloc’s landmark Digital Markets Act, which took effect in March.

Bytedance could still appeal the ruling, but has not announced any plan to do so. Instead, it has said it has already started work on complying with the DMA.

Could still face EU ban

However, even if it complies with the requirements of the DMA — which are designed to ensure that the company doesn’t use anticompetitive measures to abuse its dominant market position — it could still be banned for deliberately aiming to make TikTok addictive to children.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the app as “dangerous” back in May.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hinted that banning TikTok in the European Union is an option, during a debate this evening in Maastricht, featuring parties’ lead candidates for the bloc’s 2024 election […] “We know exactly the danger of TikTok.”

One of the potentially illegal acts was offering gift vouchers to reward users for watching videos, which likely falls into the category of actively seeking to encourage children to use the app for longer periods than they would otherwise.

US TikTok ban still possible too

Back in March, the House voted overwhelmingly to either ban TikTok from the US, or to force the sale of the app to an American-owned company. President Biden signed off on the bill, which gave Chinese owner ByteDance up to nine months to sell to a US company – though that deadline could be extended to 12 months.

TikTok took the US government to court, arguing that the threatened ban would be unconstitutional, interfering with a first amendment right to free speech. That case has been fast-tracked, and will be heard in September.

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