A bipartisan panel focusing on China has requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate whether TikTok violated child protection laws in its efforts to prevent the US from banning the app.
The letter was obtained by The Hill and initially reported by NBC News, is written to FTC Chair Lina Khan and requests the organization to check if the app broke the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) or Section 5 of the FTC Act when it sent pop-up notifications asking for personal information and urging users to contact Congress.
The Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party John Moolenarr (Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) stated that TikTok's messages were sent to young children in classrooms and other minors under 13.
The letter claimed, “The solicitation of children using deceptive and inflammatory information resulted in at least one instance of threatened self-harm, with a Congressional office reporting a call from a child threatening suicide.”
The letter came after the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed. The legislation was controversial because the app's owner, ByteDance, is based in Beijing. President Biden signed the bill, meaning ByteDance will have up to a year to sell the app or face a ban in U.S. app stores.
When the bill was being discussed, TikTok sent the pop-up message to its U.S. users urging them to call Congress and oppose the bill and to “stop a TikTok shutdown.”
“Speak up now—before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” the message said. “This will damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”
In the letter, the lawmakers expressed concern that an app controlled by the Chinese Communist Party “appears to have the unfettered ability to manipulate the American public, including America’s children.”
According to the FTC’s website, the COPPA rule does not require “operators of general audience sites to investigate the ages of visitors to their sites or services.” TikTok said it only sent the notification to users who were over the age of 18 and users had “multiple options to dismiss” the notification.
Section 5 of the FTC Act declares unfair or deceptive acts unlawful. According to a letter on the FTC’s policy statement on deception, TikTok’s notification would be deemed unlawful if it is “likely to affect the consumer’s conduct or decision with regard to the product or service.” TikTok said it has not violated Section 5 as users were receiving the notification because they were already users of the app to begin with.
“It is disheartening that Members of Congress are expressing concern simply because they heard from their own constituents imploring them not to pass a bill trampling on their First Amendment rights,” a spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement to The Hill.
Krishnamoorthi refused to provide additional comments. The Hill has contacted Moolenaar and the FTC.
