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They know how to comply, but that would hurt their bottom line.



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> we made changes to well before the investigation even began

Tiktok was not compliant before 2021. Being compliant in 2022 doesn't magically end an investigation or sentence.


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Look, those apps can work without collecting any PII whatsoever. But if they make collecting PII part of their main revenue, then they should take the laws in their respective markets (countries) serious.

Since TikTok implemented the required changes and also (apparently) did not complain about the policies themselves (e.g. being to complicated/ambiguous to implement) it really looks like it is solely on them. They violated the law so they are to be punished accordingly.

It's like doing tax fraud in a year and then complaining that you were compliant in the following years. Penalties for this can be way beyond 2.6% of someones personal revenue. What would you say if someone complains here? Would you agree with them?


It's a social media platform, of course they need PII.

We need to relax all laws. Our laws are unbelievable cruel. Business are expected to follow so so so many bureaucratic laws. To fine them 2.6% every time they break one is insane. Imagine how many countries there are out there, how many business laws there are, how much they have to comply with.

A lot of these companies already operate on extremely thin margins. This can destroy companies. It doesn't make sense.


A business doesn't have an inherent right to exist. If the only way it can exist is to break the law, then maybe it deserves to be destroyed?

Why should we put up with an abusive business model so some randos can make money?


> It's a social media platform, of course they need PII.

No they don't. Remember MySpace? Worked perfectly without PII.


Of course MySpace had PII. People wrote all about themselves.


Did MySpace not work without providing it PII during e.g. account creation? I remember it did work without it, but I might remember wrong.


GDPR doesn't go far enough and I think courts need to hand out significantly more fines.

Yes, that fine is a lot. It's supposed to be high. That's the only way that fines work. If it doesn't hurt a company's bottom line, they don't learn.


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No, because, realistically, jaywalking is not a serious problem (it's not even an offence in some places). However, this sort of thing _is_ a serious problem.


What would you propose?

TikTok is a massive corporation. They were either negligent or purposefully broke the law.


You don't have to do anything if they change, and they did. Written and formal notification to change their policy. Then if it still happens one small fine of IDK 100,000 EUR would be enough.


You're trying to peddle a common logical fallacy, reductio ad absurdum. And you've been called out on it.


This is a false analogy. Corporations are not people, corporations have massive legal teams to go through every single piece of legislation that might affect them, if they break the law you should consider it's willingly given their resources.

They break the law once, get a small fine, they break it again and the fine increases, and keeps increasing until they follow the laws. What is the other option? You can't jail a corporation.


It is a perfect analogy. These fines are unreal - these are not small fines.

This company changed it and stopped it, and they still imposed a 2.5% revenue fine for a first offense!!


Yes, not being small fines is the whole point. If this was a 5 Million Euro fine, TikTok wouldn't care at all and factor it into their cost of doing business.

Large companies have repeatedly shown that they don't care about small fine. As were speaking Meta is paying to the tune of 100k a day in Norway. Meta knew this was an ongoing issue because the Irish DPC has ruled against them in December, yet they did nothing.


> Large companies have repeatedly shown that they don't care about small fine. As were speaking Meta is paying to the tune of 100k a day in Norway. Meta knew this was an ongoing issue because the Irish DPC has ruled against them in December, yet they did nothing.

One case doesn't mirror the entirety of all of them. Also, that Meta case I'm pretty sure was about something else completely that is questionable in its own right if it should be enforced!


> This company changed it and stopped it, and they still imposed a 2.5% revenue fine for a first offense!!

Knowingly an offense at the time they did it. The company was aware of GDPR, was aware of the consequences of breaking it and still decided to break the law, a large fine is a pretty good and fair punishment given the egregious behaviour.

Are you really defending that just because it was a first time offense a slap on the wrist would be ok to a massive corporation? It's a rules-based system, where the law matters, and the law is to apply a proportional fine to the infringement, no special treatment. I won't be sorry for TikTok, it's criminal behaviour.

TikTok knowingly allowed children to get their personal data harvested against the law, they deserve the punishment.


> These fines are insane. Especially for a company who stopped it then a few years.

GDPR has been around since 2016, 5 years is a long enough period to comply to regulations (as you're complaining about 2021), even more given the size of these companies. They didn't comply, they get fined, as an EU citizen I appreciate that they have teeth to subjugate even behemoth corporations.

> But GDPR, Digital Markets Act, etc are f** insane and causing huge problems.

Why do you think they are fucking insane and causing huge problems? As an individual I'm very, very glad these regulations exist and are being enforced, corporations won't change behaviour without massive penalties to these practices, so punish them until they behave decently, that's the only way.


The law in case was in place three years ago as well, when it was broken.

Just because it took a bit to prosecute doesn't make it magically legal.


“I stopped stabbing him once I knew laws against murder were in place, and haven’t stabbed him since!”

That’s what your argument sounds like to me.


TikTok is not stabbing anyone just for being a social media platform for kids older than 12. These "kids" are teenagers and young adults. That's nothing even close to stabbing someone. If social media is so bad, that these "kids" shouldn't be using it, then either social media should be banned, or "kids" shouldn't have a smartphone!




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