By Kelvin Chan, Business Writer
LONDON (AP) --The European Union said Monday it is investigating whether TikTok has broken the bloc's strict new digital rules for cleaning up social media and keeping internet users safe.
The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, said it has "opened formal proceedings to assess" whether TikTok has breached the Digital Services Act, which took effect last year.
The DSA is a sweeping set of regulations designed to keep internet users safe online, including requirements to make it easier to flag harmful or illegal content like hate speech, give users alternatives to algorithmic recommendations and ban ads targeted at children.
The commission is focusing on whether TikTok is doing enough to curb "systemic risks" stemming from its design, including "algorithmic systems" that might stimulate "behavioral addictions." It said measures including age verification tools to stop minors from finding "inappropriate content" might not be "reasonable, proportionate and effective."
"The protection of minors is a top enforcement priority for the DSA. As a platform that reaches millions of children and teenagers, TikTok must fully comply with the DSA and has a particular role to play in the protection of minors online," Thierry Breton, the EU's internal market commissioner, said in a press release. "We are launching this formal infringement proceeding today to ensure that proportionate action is taken to protect the physical and emotional well-being of young Europeans."
TikTok has "pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under 13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with," the company said in a statement. "We'll continue to work with experts and industry to keep young people on TikTok safe, and look forward to now having the opportunity to explain this work in detail to the Commission."
The commission is also investigating TikTok's privacy measures for minors, its transparency on advertisements, and whether it's giving researchers access to data.
The EU has deemed nearly two dozen of the biggest online and social media platforms including TikTok, as ones that deserve the highest level of scrutiny under the DSA and hefty fines if they fail to comply. The bloc is already investigating Elon Musk's X, previously known as Twitter, for breaches including failure to curb the spread of illegal content.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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