TikTok does not see itself as such a powerful ‘gatekeeper’ and objected to that status. At the General Court of the Court of Justice of the EU, TikTok demanded that the stricter rules during the hearing of this objection would not apply to the popular video app. The European Union’s second highest court did not agree to this on Friday, because there is no urgent need for such an interim decision.
The stricter rules are contained in the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which also affects Facebook owner Meta, Microsoft, Google parent company Alphabet, Apple and Amazon. With their social media platforms, search engines and operating systems, they offer services that, according to the EU, are virtually impossible to ignore. Therefore, they have great power in determining which other services do and do not reach the general public, so the idea is that the EU should also regulate them more strictly.
TikTok, a subsidiary of China’s ByteDance, is the only non-American company subject to the DMA. The app objected because the tech company fears having to share competitively sensitive information, for example about the creation of user profiles.