SHANGHAI/SEOUL (CHINA/SOUTH KOREA) – A few days after South Korea’s media regulator issued fines on the short-video app Douyin for not complying to data privacy, as some of the accounts of K-pop stars have been blocked from view on the TikTok’s China version, according to Reuters’ checks.
The move also comes after remarks by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok.
South Korea’s communications regulator on Wednesday fined TikTok Pte Ltd, the publisher of the app, About 186 million was won for collecting personal information of children within 14 years of age and were taken without consent from guardians. It was not disclosed or notified while sending personal information overseas.
TikTok was asked to submit voluntary preventative measures within 30 days. However, the regulator planned to continue discussions with TikTok on information security issues, according to an official with the Korea Communications Commission.
Accounts of K-Pop stars such as Rain, TWICE, Mamamoo and HyunA were blocked from view on Douyin as of Friday.
A TikTok spokeswoman said Douyin and TikTok operated independently and the accounts were working normally on TikTok.
TikTok and Douyin are both owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
China saw 196.6 million downloads of Douyin as of 2020’s first quarter, or 9.7% of more than 2 billion TikTok downloads in total, according to data from industry site Sensor Tower.
K-Pop concerts, tourism and South Korean businesses were equally hit hard by a Chinese boycott in 2017. The boycott was after Seoul equipped a US-made missile defence system despite objections from Beijing.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.