TikTok Joins Meta Rejects European Union Digital Market 'Gateeeper' Status

JAKARTA - On Thursday, November 16, TikTok joined Meta Platform Inc., in filing an appeal against the "gatekeeper" status under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a European Union law that enforces stricter rules for technology companies and makes it easier for users to switch between competing services.

Meta on Wednesday 15 November challenged the "gatekeeper" status for its Messenger and Marketplace platforms, but did not appeal the status for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The European Union in September selected 22 "gatekeepers" services, run by six technology companies - Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet's Google, Amazon, Meta, and ByteDance's TikTok.

While Microsoft, Google, and Amazon did not challenge their appointment, Apple has yet to comment on its plans. November 16 is the final deadline for filing an appeal.

"Our defense is based on the belief that our appointment risks damaging the goals declared by DMA by protecting true GTeekeepers from new competitors like TikTok," TikTok said. "Far from being a GTeeper, our platform, which has been operating in Europe for a little more than five years, can be said to be the most capable competitor to the platform's more established business."

The video-sharing app said it did not meet the legal threshold for revenue generated in the European Economic Zone of 7.5 billion euros (Rp126.7 trillion) per year.

In DMA, companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and a market capitalization of 75 billion euros (Rp1,267 trillion) are considered as GTeekeepers providing core platform services.

The company said its appointment as a GTeeper was based on its parent global market cap, ByteDance, which is largely based on performance of business lines that are not even operating in Europe.

Last month, China's ByteDance bought back shares from US employees in a deal that rated the company as $223.5 billion.

TikTok, which has more than 134 million monthly active users, says they are competitors, not major players, in digital advertising and no market investigations have been carried out regarding their appointment by the European Commission.