Chinese social media giant Bytedance was dealt a stinging blow last September when Ireland’s data privacy watchdog issued it a record $370 million fine over its failure to properly safeguard the personal data of children using its app TikTok. New corporate filings suggest that Bytedance expects more fines like this to come. The company has explicitly set aside $1 billion to cover future fines from European privacy regulators.
Bytedance has faced a barrage of lawsuits and investigations from regulators around the world over TikTok’s addictive design, handling of user data and lack of safeguards for teenage users. Only yesterday, the attorneys general of thirteen states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits claiming that TikTok was designed to be used compulsively and had harmed children and teens as a result.
The $1 billion provision for future fines was revealed in corporate accounts for TikTok’s European operations filed this week with the United Kingdom’s Companies House. The accounts also showed that TikTok’s European revenues surged to $4.57 billion last year, up from $2.6 billion in 2022. Its losses have also nearly tripled to $1.3 billion in 2023, up from $512 million.
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The scale of total fines and penalties facing TikTok on the European continent could be even larger than the $1 billion provision in its 2023 accounts. The European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) in February 2024. The European Union can fine companies up to 6% of global revenue for breaches of the DSA, or impose a ban.