TikTok is being investigated by the UK communications watchdog over reportedly providing false information in a legal information request. 

The UK watchdog said it has reason to believe TikTok provided inaccurate information when it was questioned about its parental control system. 

The system allows parents to link their account with their child’s and manage things such as screen time, direct messages, content filtering and privacy settings.

As part of a report published on Thursday (14 December), Ofcom asked TikTok, Snap and Twitch how they were meeting legal requirements to protect children from content that could harm “their physical, mental, or moral development”.

Ofcom asked TikTok about its Family Pairing feature, its parental control system that launched in April 2020.  

The watchdog found that all three social media platforms had measures in place, but children were still at risk of sometimes seeing the content. 

TikTok said it spotted the issue and informed Ofcom, which launched the investigation. The social media giant said the mistake was caused by a technical problem.

The news comes as the value of social media deals have been a downward decline since peaking in 2020, according to GlobalData’s Deal Database.

In 2020, the value of global social media deals totalled $78.4bn, significantly more than in 2019, which saw deals total $11.9bn.

In 2023, as of 15 December, the value of social media deals totalled $6bn. This is a significant drop from $56.6bn in 2022.

It comes as social media companies increasingly diversify away from their ad-funded business model in the face of increased regulatory scrutiny.

According to GlobalData’s latest Thematic Intelligence: Social Media report, in 2023 alone, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance and Meta were fined a combined $7.7bn for breaching data privacy laws over their ad-targeting practices. 

Regulators have also accused them of monopolistic behavior around access to personal data. 

In 2023, Alphabet, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft were classified as “gatekeepers” under the EU’s latest antitrust legislation.

Our signals coverage is powered by GlobalData’s Thematic Engine, which tags millions of data items across six alternative datasets – patents, jobs, deals, company filings, social media mentions and news – to themes, sectors and companies. These signals enhance our predictive capabilities, helping us to identify the most disruptive threats across each of the sectors we cover and the companies best placed to succeed.