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TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

theguardian.com

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Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#361

Post by pixelat3d »

parl_match wrote: post #322
Footnote7341 wrote: post #315

We're going to have state I.D to use any popular website alongside remote attestation and you guys are cheering us along the path there with cases like this

At this point, maybe we should reduce anonymization? We've had this idea since the 90s that an anonymous internet with signal amplification is a net good, but that's been turning out to be less and less true. If you want to self publish anonymously, you are not entitled to use of one of the big 5 platforms. Maybe this causes fragmentation of large platforms, that'd also be a net good imo.

I see this angle a lot; " Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [1]" it's often called. However, Facebook -- the single largest social website in the world -- stands as stark evidence that anonymity doesn't really factor in all that much. I'm not saying it isn't a contributing factor, but it's not the boogeyman it is so very often made out to be.

[1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/325/699/4fc...

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#362

Post by berniedurfee »

orf wrote: post #333
gdprwhat wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. How do regulators expect tech companies to verify the real age of users (without further intrusions of privacy)? 2. How do the regulators expect tech companies to verify the parents of child users? 3. Do regulators want tech companies to collect every child's birth certificate?

Use one of the many companies in this space to verify the users ID? Or push some development in this space to find a better way? Or like, basically anything except pretending it’s not an issue and externalising the cost + issues onto everyone else while you reap fantastic profits?

I would imagine most social media platforms have already aggregated enough data to suss out familial relationships pretty confidently. That’s kinda central to their business model.

In fact, it’s probably more likely these platforms don’t want anyone to know how much they already do know about familial relationships.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#363

Post by berniedurfee »

toasted-subs wrote: post #308

Seems like not a lot money in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn't have minded a relatively hefty fine, but maybe I don't know all the details...

I agree. At their scale, that fine is a ‘cost of doing business’ tax.

It also seems likely that number will be litigated down to something much smaller by the time the legal dust settles.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#364

Post by berniedurfee »

mchanson wrote: post #10

This is pretty interesting time with the social media / data companies. Will this be the new normal? Where, like clock work, another fine gets announced? Or will we transition through this period into one where they know how to, and also do, comply and the regulations don't change a ton?

I always picture companies see regulatory bodies as a slalom course with regulations representing the slalom poles.

The course changes occasionally, but companies adapt quickly and learn to handle the course changes efficiently on the next run, skimming by the poles on the way to the finish line.

Every once in a while a new pole smacks them in the face, but by the next fiscal year, they’ve learned to navigate past it as if it weren’t there.

Lawyer are usually damn fine slalom racers, but occasionally you do need to donate money to the course to encourage the owner to move the poles.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#365

Post by c-hendricks »

jimbob45 wrote: post #330
c-hendricks wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines against companies should be revenue based instead of profit based. Companies have too much wiggle room from revenue to profit.

Why would you punish success? Do you not want successful companies?

I'm honestly flabbergasted at this take, holy shit.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#366

Post by personomas »

esarbe wrote: post #276
personomas wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I understand the tool of hyperbole, but this is a very flawed hyperbole. We do have to keep people around if they behave in ways that harm society, but society is not morally bound to keep companies existing despite them misbehaving. They are not living conscious entities. They are organizations created for the purpose of accumulating money. And if they cannot do that without violating the laws, then they should be d…

Organizations/companies are serve a purpose of serving society through work. They are inherently unselfish entities.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#367

Post by personomas »

dahfizz wrote: post #271
hef19898 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I think it is totally ok to bankrupt a company for not following the law.

For any violation at all? If one single McDonalds employee in Dublin breaks the health code, you think all of McDonalds should go bankrupt? I assume you also support the death penalty for J walking?

I don't know how this could possibly be down-voted, it's spot on.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#368

Post by valenterry »

personomas wrote: post #157
valenterry wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#369

Post by darthrupert »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #104
darthrupert wrote: post #69

Is EU the only significant power on this planet that isn't ... for a lack of better word, evil?

The EU's behavior during the Greek debt crisis was pretty evil. Imagine if a US state were in serious debt, and the US federal response were to slash Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits to the state. The EU view was that Greece should get out of debt by massively slashing government spending, including on virtually all social services, which sent the country spiralling into a Great-Depression-level econom…

Given how all sides of that debacle seem to be really unhappy on how it went, it sounds like a pretty decent compromise.

Re: TikTok fined €345M for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

#370

Post by Aerbil313 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #359
roncesvalles wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the town square is ephemeral. Sure, maybe it's written down somewhere , heck maybe the local scribe even publishes it in the next day's paper. But it won't show up 7 years later as the third Google search result when someone searches your name. You either need the right to be forgotten, or the right to be anonymous.

This is the crux of the social good of anonymization in modern times. Historically, it wasn't current-moment anonymization that was good, but ephemerality. Sadly, I think the right/ability-to-record is a genie that can't be put back in the bottle (no one can scrape anything?), so we may need to switch from identifiable-but-emphemral (historical state) to anonymous-but-recordable (future state) to preserve the same fr…

It’s all just that internet is neither a game to be hunted nor a fire to be started. No one knows how to deal with it. Because there isn’t any proper way to deal with it. It should not exist in the first place, says our minds, for which it is all unintelligible.
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