I've been thinking for a while: how about governments fine in voting equity rather than cash? Hand the relevant voting equity over to a coop of users. It is probably the only fair way to deal with these things that would be adequately scary to work. Bonus points for bringing about democratic cooperative control of some tech giants.
Wow! That could work. I like it. I believe that would truly terrify owners. Enough to act as a strong deterrent.
I'm sure there are a ton of details which need to be worked out, and probably there are drawbacks and secondary effects I'm not seeing. Strange to ask, but... is this your idea? Just because this is the first time I'm hearing this solution. If it is yours, congrats. If you think you had it from somewhere else, does it have a name by any chance? (just so I can read up on it.)
It is my idea. I'm a nerd for collective ownership and democratic management of going concerns so it seemed like a natural leap. Maybe I ought to write something about it.
"While we disagree with the ICO's decision, which relates to May 2018 - July 2020, we are pleased that the fine announced today has been reduced to under half the amount proposed last year."
So they will pay half of 12.7? Or is 12.7 already the half?
My question is why have they singled out Tiktok? This seems political to me.
Last year Ofcom published a report on childrens' use of social media. It found:
"For children aged 8-12 who used social media the proportions with their own profile were; eight in ten (79%) among Snapchat users, 72% for Facebook, around two-thirds on each of the other platforms (i.e. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter), except YouTube at 43%."
Article is light on details. What did TikTok do? Did they literally just not have a checkbox for confirming that the user was older than 13 when they sign up? Seems like a rookie mistake.
This still doesn't go far enough to the standards of the major big tech companies having similar breaches elsewhere. Another slap on the wrist. TikTok should get a fine in the hundreds of millions, and for repeat offences should be in the billions, just like Google and Facebook did.
Regulators are never tired of collecting and issuing fines to companies that are repeat offenders for privacy breaches and violations as I said before.
In brief if you offer services to children under 13 you have to get the consent of the parents. Tiktok didn't take care to check if users were under 13, nor attempt to get consent. The ICO estimates 1.4 million children came under this category (in the UK, 2020).
12.7M is pocket change.