Explore Business Standard
TikTok
Censorship claims, technical problems and a report of a surge in app deletions are just some of the challenges TikTok is facing as it adjusts to a new ownership structure in the United States that was finalized last week. The company said Monday it was experiencing a "major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage" at one of its US data centre partner sites. The outage led to bugs such as creators temporarily seeing zero views on their videos even if people had looked at them, as well as slow load times and timeout requests when posting videos. On Tuesday, TikTok said it had made significant progress restoring services though users could still see glitches while using the popular video sharing app. At the same time, users were raising concerns that the company is "censoring" videos, including ones critical of President Donald Trump, ICE or mentions of Jeffrey Epstein. The complaints were enough for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce on X Monday that he is launching a .
TikTok agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial kicked off, the plaintiff's attorneys confirmed. The social video platform was one of three companies - along with Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube - facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc, settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum. Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed, and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials "KGM," whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials - essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresiden
President Donald Trump's meeting on Thursday with China's top leader, Xi Jinping, produced a raft of decisions to help dial back trade tensions, but no agreement on TikTok's ownership. China will work with the US to properly resolve issues related to TikTok, China's Commerce Ministry said after the meeting. It gave no details on any progress toward ending uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the US. The Trump administration had been signalling that it may have finally reached a deal with Beijing to keep TikTok running in the US. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday that the two leaders will consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea. Wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner to replace China's ByteDance. The platform went dark briefly on a January deadline, but on his first day in office, Trump signed
The Trump administration has been signalling that it may have finally reached a deal with China to keep TikTok running in the US, with the two countries finalising it as soon as Thursday. President Donald Trump is visiting South Korea, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to de-escalate a trade war. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS's Face the Nation Sunday that the two leaders will consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea. If it happens, the deal would mark the end of months of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner in the place of China's ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law's January deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administrat
The European Union on Friday said Meta and TikTok had breached their transparency obligations after an investigation that could result in billions of dollars in fines. The inquiry found both companies had violated the Digital Services Act, the EU's trailblazing digital rule book that imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep internet users safe online, including making it easier to report counterfeit or unsafe goods or flag harmful or illegal content like hate speech, as well as a ban on ads targeted at children. We are making sure platforms are accountable for their services, as ensured by EU law, towards users and society, said Henna Virkunnen, the EU's executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, in a post on X. Our democracies depend on trust. That means platforms must empower users, respect their rights, and open their systems to scrutiny. The DSA makes this a duty, not a choice. The 27-nation bloc launched investigations in 2024 into both