EU fines TikTok token amount of €530 million for gross privacy violations

A European Union privacy watchdog fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video sharing app’s data transfers to China put users at risk of spying, in breach of strict EU data privacy rules.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months.
↫ Kelvin Chan for AP News

In case you’re wondering what Ireland’s specific role in this case is, TikTok’s European headquarters are located in Ireland, which means that any EU-wide privacy violations by TikTok are handled by Ireland’s privacy watchdog.

Anyway, sounds like a big fine, right? Let’s do some math.

TikTok’s global revenue last year is estimated at €20 billion. This means that a €530 million fine is 2.65% of TikTok’s global yearly revenue. Now let’s make this more relatable for us normal people. The yearly median income in Sweden is €34365 (pre-taxes), which means that if the median income Swede had to pay a fine with the same impact as the TikTok fine, they’d have to pay €910.

That’s how utterly bullshit this fine is. €910 isn’t nothing if you make €34000 per year, but would you call this a true punishment for TikTok? Any time you read about any of these coporate fines, you should do math like this to get an idea of what the true impact of the fine really amounts to. You’ll be surprised to learn to just how utterly toothless they are.