EU preliminarily finds TikTok’s ad repository in breach of DSA

The European Commission has informed TikTok of its preliminary view that the company does not fulfill the Digital Services Act’s obligation to publish an advertisement repository. Such an advertising repository is critical for researchers and civil society to detect scam advertisements, hybrid threat campaigns, as well as coordinated information operations and fake advertisements, including in the context of elections. The Commission has found that TikTok does not provide the necessary information about the content of the advertisements, the users targeted by the ads, and who paid for the advertisements. Moreover, TikTok’s advertisement repository does not allow the public to search comprehensively for advertisements on the basis of this information, thereby limiting the usefulness of the tool. The Commission’s preliminary findings are based on an in-depth investigation that included, among others, the analysis of internal company documents, testing TikTok’s tools, and interviews with experts in the field. By sending preliminary findings, the Commission informs TikTok of its preliminary view that it is in breach of the DSA. If the Commission’s preliminary views were to be ultimately confirmed, the Commission may issue a non-compliance decision, which may trigger a fine of up to 6% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider as well as an enhanced supervision period to ensure compliance with the measures the provider intends to take to remedy the breach. Publicly traded companies in the social media space that compete with TikTok include Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Pinterest (PINS), Reddit (RDDT) and Snap (SNAP).