More to the point, Microsoft is the company least involved in social media that has the largest warchest. No way Congress or the administration would condone any of the companies whose CEOs testified on Capitol Hill this week buying TikTok.
Technically Microsoft owned 1.6% shares before Facebook's IPO, and last information I could get it had sold 20% of the proceeds post-IPO in 2012, so they are somewhat involved in social media.
> More to the point, Microsoft is the company least involved in social media that has the largest warchest
Probably not, no matter how you prioritize the two prongs of that, and no matter which construction of war chest size you take, since Alphabet and Apple both less social media involvement (though Alphabet has tried in the past to have more) and more cash on hand, while both Apple and Amazon have less social media involvement and greater market cap.
Almost every kid at my daughter's elementary school has TikTok installed and they are all under 13. If you have an Android phone, they do basically no verification to register and then if you go to your Google Account you can see that they share your email and personal data with TikTok. This is a major COPPA violation. Does this mean Microsoft may soon be the biggest violator of COPPA in the US?
The FTC's guidance specifically allows services to rely on a user's self-reported age. See https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com..., under the heading "Will the COPPA Rule prevent children from lying about their age to register for general audience sites or online services whose terms of service prohibit their participation?"
To be clear, I think you mean "email address" when you say that TikTok has access to "email". They don't actually have access to email, and I know the distinction is well understood here but it seems most of the United States is being lead to believe that TikTok can read the contents of GMail because of some sneaky Terms of Use agreement.
Google accounts set up with "Family Link" (for users under 13 year old) can't use the "Sign In with Google" feature, so it's safe to assume/hide behind "Google did age verification".
Enter their birthday. My son and his friends and cousins always enter the year of their birthday as 1955 so that they appear to be old men when they were under 13. They never answer honestly and it is like having a fake ID.
Microsoft used to have a Passport service that could verify a user, just add in an ID to verify age scan your driver's license or whatever and send it to Microsoft passport. It is an extra step but you don't want the kiddies looking at nudes and violence and hate speech.