TikTok initiated removal of Universal Music Publishing Group’s (UMPG) songs due to unsuccessful license renewal negotiations. Following the expiration of their licensing agreement on 31 January, TikTok, while retaining the videos, has begun silencing videos featuring songs from artists associated with UMPG.
The new policy implies that TikTok will need to exclude any music where UMPG songwriters have contributed, irrespective of the main label. This expands the impact beyond UMG-associated artists, affecting others as well—if a UMPG-affiliated songwriter contributed to a song by another label, even minimally, TikTok will be obliged to remove it from its platform.
Despite UMPG’s claim of negligible impact on its revenue, the new changes will adversely impact artists and songwriters who will lose promotion opportunities as the platform is known for enabling music discovery. Artists also stand to potentially lose out on royalty earnings on the platform. UMG recognizes these consequences but maintains its commitment to securing a new deal that justly compensates its artists.
According to Indonesia’s minister for small-medium enterprises (SMEs), Teten Masduki, TikTok continues to disregard Indonesia’s prohibition on in-app transactions. The minister stated, “The trade minister has to reprimand TikTok so that it complies with the regulation, if not then … the government’s authority is undermined.”
This comes after social media company gained control of the country’s largest e-commerce platform, Tokopedia, at $840 million, in order to relaunch its online shopping operations after a ban was imposed last year. TikTok Shop, the e-commerce service of the company, was forced to shut down in Indonesia due to the country’s ban on social media platform-based online shopping in the country’s attempt to safeguard the interests of smaller merchants and protect user data.
It remains to be seen how social media giant circumvents the increasing pressure to comply with legal requirements. With its 125 million user base in Indonesia, the country is an important market that can potentially generate substantial e-commerce revenue.
The European Union will conduct an investigation into potential violations of online content regulations by ByteDance’s TikTok, with a focus on safeguarding children and ensuring transparent advertising. EU industry chief Thierry Breton stated that this decision was made after reviewing TikTok’s risk assessment report and its responses to information requests.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union mandates that major online platforms and search engines must tackle illegal content and mitigate risks to public security. As such, the investigation will focus on issues like TikTok’s system design, particularly its algorithmic systems that may encourage addictive behaviours and create ‘rabbit hole effects.’ Additionally, it will also be assessed whether TikTok has implemented adequate and proportionate measures to ensure the privacy, safety, and security of minors. In addition to minors’ protection, the Commission will also be examining whether social media company provides a dependable database of advertisements on its platform to enable researchers to analyse potential online risks.
This investigation puts the social media platform at risk of significant penalties. Social media’s parent company, ByteDance, may face fines of up to 6% of its global revenue if TikTok is found to be in violation of DSA regulations. TikTok’s spokesperson has stated their commitment to collaborating with the process and added how the company has been at the forefront of developing features and settings to protect teenagers and prevent children under the age of 13 from accessing the platform, a challenge that the entire industry is currently confronting.
TikTok, owned by the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, has now introduced its e-commerce service, TikTok Shop, in the United States. The company has introduced a Shop Tab feature that displays products from its marketplace to 40 per cent of its app users. The feature will be gradually rolled out to all of the app’s 150 million US users by early October. This update enables users to explore and purchase products directly within the app, offering a new shopping experience on TikTok.
TikTok Shop enables users to purchase products featured in live streams and short videos directly. In addition, it is introducing an e-commerce feature that will provide content creators with fresh revenue streams by matching them with relevant brands for commission-based marketing collaborations. The platform’s “Fulfilled by TikTok” program, which includes storage, packing, and shipping, is also available to sellers.
Initially, TikTok’s e-commerce service was introduced in Indonesia in 2021 and has since expanded to the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its entry into the US e-commerce sector is noteworthy as it aligns with the company’s broader strategy to attract tech-savvy young consumers while diversifying its sources of revenue.
A former TikTok content moderator in Kenya, James Oyange Odhiambo, has alleged that he developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to his work and was unfairly dismissed for advocating for better working conditions.
The law firm representing Odhiambo has sent a letter to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and the outsourcing company Majorel threatening a lawsuit if their demands are not met within two weeks. The letter alleges that content moderators were, at times, required to watch between 250 and 350 disturbing and violent videos per hour without adequate mental health support. A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on the accusations made in the letter. ByteDance did not respond to Time’s request for comment.
TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has filed a lawsuit against the Montana state ban and is seeking a preliminary injunction to block its enforcement that should come into effect on 1 January. Montana passed a law imposing fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok. The law does not impose penalties on individual TikTok users.
TikTok filed suit in May and is now asking the US District Judge to issue a preliminary injunction to block the first-of-its-kind US state ban on several grounds, claiming that it infringes on the First Amendment rights of both TikTok and its users. Additionally, the platforms claim that the ban is preempted by federal law and violates the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.
The company estimates that around 380,000 people in Montana use TikTok out of 150 million users nationwide. The platform also insists that it does not share any data with the Chinese government and warns that the ban would have significant and irreversible effects on its business and brand. Montana, on the other hand, is considering expanding the ban.
TikTok Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew confirmed it: China-based employees who pass specific internal security checks can access certain information related to TikTok’s US users, including public videos and comments. All of that data is protected by ‘robust cybersecurity controls’ and is not disclosed to the Chinese government, he said.
TikTok has reiterated that Project Texas, which includes physically storing US user information in data centres on US servers owned by software giant Oracle Corp, is the answer. However, the US Senate Intelligence Committee is concerned about the reliability of TikTok’s promises and has asked the US Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into whether TikTok misled US lawmakers about China-based employees of its parent company, ByteDance, accessing American user data.
