Good morning, Quartz readers! Here’s a roundup of the latest news you need to know: 1. US pledges support for Israel: President Joe Biden condemns Hamas’s attack and confirms American hostages. 2. EU warns Elon Musk to comply with disinformation laws regarding fake news about the war circulating on X. 3. Should you invest in …
Utah is suing TikTok as of Tuesday for allegedly encouraging children into social media usage that is detrimental to their mental health. The Beehive State is taking aim at the social media company with a focus on allegedly enticing children to use the app for prolonged periods of time, not being honest about its safety, …
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have raised concerns about TikTok’s relationship with its parent company, ByteDance, and are demanding answers. This comes after reports of high-level executives moving between the two companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, several executives from ByteDance have been transferred to TikTok since the beginning of the …
TikTok seems to be aggressively pushing a hairbrush on its users through its new shopping feature. Influencers and smaller creators are participating in paid advertising campaigns and affiliate marketing programs to promote this hairbrush called the “viral TikTok brush.” However, what’s perplexing is that this brush is being sold at vastly different prices, ranging from …
Signage at the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. booth at the Smart China Expo in Chongqing, China, on Monday, Sept. 4, 2023. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images Alibaba aims to prioritize the “user first” and “AI-driven” approach, according to the new CEO Eddie Wu, who recently addressed the employees. Wu, who assumed the role …
The European Union (EU) has unveiled new digital regulations that specifically target major global tech giants, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Facebook’s parent company Meta, and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. These tech companies have now been classified as online “gatekeepers” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), subjecting them to the highest …
China’s internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has recently announced regulations aimed at reducing the excessive smartphone usage among children. This move poses a challenge to companies like Tencent and ByteDance, which operate popular social media platforms and online games. The draft guidelines, which were published on the CAC’s website, state that minors …
A bill blocking TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media platform, from exporting data to China has been reintroduced by a bipartisan group of senators. The bill, known as the Protecting Americans’ Data From Foreign Surveillance Act of 2023, which was first introduced in 2022, has been updated to include measures such as identifying categories of personal …
Two senators, Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, have written to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew demanding that the social media platform disclose whether China has the ability to store and access data relating to American users. The letter follows a Forbes report last month alleging that American users’ sensitive data, including social security numbers and …
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined TikTok £12.7m for illegally using personal data of over a million young children. Despite banning under-13s from signing up, TikTok allowed 1.4m to register in 2020 alone. UK data laws require apps to gain parental consent before allowing children under 13 to sign up. The ICO stated that …