Elvira Pollina
MILAN (Reuters) – The popular video app TikTok said on Wednesday that it had agreed with Italian authorities to block all users who claim to be under 13, among other measures, after the death of a 10-year-old girl having been attributed to a breathtaking social media challenge.
Prosecutors in Palermo are investigating the case, which has increased the scrutiny of children’s use of social media platforms.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, gained popularity for the first time in Asia and now also has many followers in the West. It became extremely popular with teenagers in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Italian regulator said that TikTok agreed to block all accounts in Italy as of February 9, and to reinstate only users who provided a date of birth showing that they were at least 13 years old.
Alexandra Evans, head of child safety at Tiktok in Europe, said she would also introduce a button on the app to allow members to report users who appear to be under 13.
The regulator said TikTok also agreed to evaluate the use of artificial intelligence to detect accounts for minors.
However, you will need to discuss the proposal with the Irish privacy authority, which is Tik Tok’s primary data protection authority in the European Union, because the company has its European headquarters in Ireland.
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina, edited by Valentina Za and Kevin Liffey)