TikTok And Meta Have Joined Forces To Appeal EU Gatekeeper Status

(CTN News) – TikTok joined Meta in appealing against the “gatekeeper” status under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a new law introduced by the European Union in 2013 that imposes stricter regulations on tech companies and makes it easier for users to switch between competing services.

On Wednesday, Meta challenged the “gatekeeper” designations for its Messenger and Marketplace platforms but did not contest the designations for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as far as they are concerned.

In September, the European Union chose 22 “gatekeeper” services, which are run by six tech giants – Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Meta, and ByteDance’s TikTok.

Despite the fact that Microsoft, Google and Amazon have not challenged their designations, Apple has yet to make any comment on its proposal. In order to appeal the decision, you have until November 16 to do so.

DMA’s appeal is based on its belief that its designation may undermine the DMA’s stated goal of protecting gatekeepers from new competition, such as TikTok, by undermining the DMA’s own mission of protecting gatekeepers from new competition.

There can be no doubt that our platform, which has been operating in Europe for just over five years, has the potential to be the most capable challenger to more entrenched platform businesses.

There have been reports that the TikTok video-sharing app has not met the law’s threshold for revenue generated in the European Economic Area, which is 7.5 billion euros ($8.13 billion) per annum, for the past three years.

The DMA classifies companies that have a market capitalization of at least 75 billion Euros and a monthly active user base of at least 45 million as gatekeepers of a core platform service that they offer to their customers, according to the DMA.

Several sources have indicated that the company has been designated a gatekeeper as a result of its parent company’s global market capitalization, ByteDance’s, based primarily on the performance of business lines which are not even operating in Europe.

It was reported last month that China’s ByteDance bought back shares from US employees in a deal that valued the company at $223.5 billion.

According to TikTok, a video-sharing app with over 134 million monthly users, it is a challenger, not an incumbent, in the digital advertising space, and a market investigation by the European Commission has not been conducted in relation to its designation.

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