Federal regulators fined social media app Musical.ly — now known as TikTok — $5.7 million for illegally collecting the names, email addresses, pictures and locations of kids under 13, a record penalty for violations of the nation’s child privacy law.
The fine is the result of a settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and TikTok, which merged with California-based Musica.ly in 2018, over allegations of illegal data collection of children.
The TikTok app, like Musical.ly before it, allows users to make videos of themselves lip-syncing to millions of songs, including from children's movies, and is broadly popular among adults and children.