The social network TikTok has been temporarily blocked in Italy, for users of unconfirmed age, following the death of Antonella Sicomero, a 10-year-old girl who was taking part in a challenge on the social network.
A Personal Data Protection Authority announced, in a statement, the decision to “block the Chinese social network” with immediate effect until February 15, when new assessments will be made on the application's security standards.
The social network is prohibited from using “the data of users whose age has not been determined with absolute security”, detailed the authority, cited by the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The decision came a few hours after the death of a 10-year-old girl in Palermo, in the south of Sicily, was revealed due to suffocation while participating in the Blackout Challenge, which consists of staying for as long as possible. possible without breathing, and he filmed himself with his own cell phone for Tik Tok.
The child's registration on the social network, which is very popular among teenagers, “was not refused by the company” despite his age, which was inferred from the minimum age of 13 set by TikTok.
Antonella died in a hospital in Palermo after being discovered, on Wednesday, unconscious by her five-year-old sister in the bathroom, with her cell phone next to her, which was seized by the Italian police.
TikTok, which belongs to the Chinese company ByteDance, said this Friday that it was unable to identify any content on its website that could have encouraged the child to participate in any challenge, but it will collaborate with authorities in the investigation into possible “incitement to suicide".
Medical experts warn of the danger of this challenge, which is becoming popular among some young people, who refer to it as a “blackout” or “choking game”.
The child's parents told the newspaper La Repubblica that the other daughter explained that her sister “played blackout”. “We didn’t know anything” – said Antonella’s father – “We didn’t know that she was participating in this game. We knew that (our daughter) went on TikTok to dance, watch videos. But how could I imagine this atrocity?”
The data protection authority filed a lawsuit against the social network in December 2019, criticizing the “lack of attention to the protection of minors, the ease of circumventing the prohibition on registering minors and the lack of transparency and clarity in the information provided to users, as well as pre-defined settings that do not respect privacy ”.
TikTok, which went global in 2018, built its rapid success on parody videos, messages and short dance or comedy performances set to popular music videos – driven by an algorithm that determines what content is most likely to interest each user. .
The young woman's death provoked strong reactions in Italy, which calls for better regulation of social networks.
“Social networks cannot become a jungle where everything is allowed,” said Licia Ronzulli, president of the Parliamentary Commission for Child Protection in Italy.
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