Italy’s antitrust authority has opened an investigation into TikTok for allegedly violating the country’s rules by allowing the publication of “dangerous content” inciting self-harm and malnutrition.
The investigation also affects the Irish unit of TikTok, which is responsible for the social network in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom and Italy itself. According to the Italian police, steps were also taken at the app’s headquarters this Tuesday morning.
The main accusation against TikTok is related to the viral content of the “French scar challenge”, since there are thousands of videos of teens influencing others to also self-harm.
This new challenge started to go viral on TikTok recently and the Italian authorities accuse the social network of not removing the videos from the platform.
The new trend seeks to inflict a small injury on the face, just below the eye, to mimic the violent and aggressive look of French gangsters. To do this, many teenagers squeeze the cheekbone itself so that the capillaries under the skin break and the red bruise appears.
Commenting on the matter in a note, Italy’s supervisory body said that TikTok has not complied with its own rules.
Adequate systems are lacking to oversee content posted by third parties, and TikTok violates its own guidelines by not removing content deemed harmful.
For now, the social network has not commented on the matter.