TikTok, a Chinese social media company, intends to establish two new data centers in Europe, which might allay worries about the security of user data and lessen regulatory pressure on the company, according to a senior executive.
TikTok has been attempting to reassure governments and authorities that users’ personal information cannot be accessed and that its content cannot be altered by China’s Communist Party or anybody else working for Beijing.
According to Rich Waterworth, general manager for operations in Europe at TikTok, the short video sharing app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, wants to increase the amount of data it stores in Europe.
“We are at an advanced stage of finalizing a plan for a second data center in Ireland with a third-party service provider, in addition to the site announced last year,” said Waterworth.
In addition to their planned activities in Ireland, Waterworth said they are in discussions to open a third data center in Europe. Data migration for TikTok users in Europe will start this year and last until 2024.
Also, the company projected 125 million monthly active users in the European Union between August 2022 and January 2023, making it subject to the Digital Services Act’s (DSA) more stringent EU online content regulations.
Companies with more than 45 million users are classified as extremely big online platforms by the DSA, which also imposes requirements on them for risk management, external and independent audits, data sharing with regulators and researchers, and adoption of a code of conduct.
Online platforms and search engines had until February 17 to publish their monthly active user counts. This deadline was set by the European Commission. Massive web platforms have four months to follow the guidelines or face penalties.
Twitter announced on Thursday that, according to an estimate of the last 45 days, it has 100.9 million average monthly users in the European Union.
According to Alphabet, users can access its services whether they are signed into an account or signed out by providing one set of numbers based on recipients’ accounts and another set based on signed-out recipients.
A total of 278.6 million people were reported to be logged in on a monthly average to Google Maps, 274.6 million to Google Play, 332 million to Google Search, 74.9 million to Shopping, and 401.7 million to YouTube.
Moreover, in the final half of 2022, according to Meta Platforms, there were approximately 250 million average monthly active users on Instagram and 255 million average monthly active users on Facebook in the European Union.
