1. Who They Are
TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, is the world's dominant short-video platform, with roughly 170 million users in both the United States and the European Union. Following the US divest-or-ban law, its American operations were reorganized in 2025–2026 into TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, 80.1 percent American-owned, with Oracle as equity stakeholder, board participant, and security provider (see the Oracle fact sheet). ByteDance is one of six companies designated a "gatekeeper" under the EU Digital Markets Act.
2. What the Book Documents
The Medalion hire: TikTok — while being accused by American politicians of being a Chinese influence operation — hired Reut Medalion, a former Unit 8200 intelligence commander who led its cybersecurity operations team, as its global incident manager for trust and safety in December 2023, during the peak of Israel's assault on Gaza. The book pauses on the timing: the person managing "global incidents" for the platform through which the world was watching the destruction of Gaza was a commander from the military conducting it (book sources: MintPress News, July 18, 2025; The Intercept, June 2024).
The ban and the buyer: the book documents Representative Mike Gallagher's public argument that TikTok was turning young Americans against Israel, the divest-or-ban legislation that followed, and the identity of the proposed buyer — Oracle, the company providing database infrastructure to the Israeli military's intelligence apparatus (book source: The Intercept, "The TikTok Ban Is Also About Hiding Pro-Palestinian Content," January 2025).
3. Verified Fines and Penalties (2020 – present)
| Date | Authority | Amount | Basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2, 2025 | Data Protection Commission (Ireland, EU lead authority) | €530 million (€485M + €45M) | Unlawful transfers of European user data to China without ensuring equivalent protection against access under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage and intelligence laws; transparency failures; TikTok also admitted it had given the inquiry inaccurate evidence — it had claimed EEA data was never stored on Chinese servers, then disclosed in April 2025 that it had been | UPHELD: Irish High Court affirmed the findings and the €530M fine on June 3, 2026. TikTok's stay of the data-transfer suspension and compliance orders remains in place pending further appeal (stay granted Nov 13, 2025; DPC's challenge to the stay dismissed by the Supreme Court Apr 30, 2026) |
| Sep 2023 | Data Protection Commission (Ireland) | €345 million | Children's data — accounts of users aged 13–17 defaulted to public; family-pairing weaknesses | Issued (predecessor case to the 2025 fine) |
| Apr 4, 2023 | Information Commissioner's Office (UK) | £12.7 million | Misusing data of children under 13 who were on the platform without parental consent, contrary to UK GDPR (ICO announcement, April 4, 2023) | Issued |
| Mar 2024 | AGCM (Italian Competition Authority) | €10 million | Inadequate safeguards allowing dangerous challenge content (the "French scar" challenge) to reach minors, and insufficient age controls (AGCM decision, March 2024) | Issued |
Sources: Data Protection Commission official announcement · RTE on the fine and the inaccurate evidence · Digital Policy Alert case tracker (High Court upholding, stay history)
4. Open Proceedings — the EU Digital Services Act Docket
The European Commission's formal DSA proceedings, opened February 19, 2024, have produced four sets of findings against TikTok, each carrying exposure of up to 6 percent of ByteDance's global annual turnover: (1) advertisement repository — preliminary breach finding May 2025, resolved through binding commitments in December 2025; (2) researcher data access — preliminary findings October 2025; (3) addictive design (infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications) — preliminary finding February 2026, which TikTok called "categorically false"; and (4) minors' account safety — preliminary finding July 24, 2026 that children's accounts and content remain too widely visible, including to adults with no TikTok account, exposing minors to unwanted contact, cyberbullying and predatory behavior. TikTok disputes the findings; these remain preliminary, not final decisions. Sources: JURIST · European Commission press release (July 24, 2026) · European Commission (ad repository finding)
5. The United States — Ban, Sale, and the Children's Case
United States v. TikTok (C.D. Cal., filed August 2, 2024): the Department of Justice, on referral from the FTC, sued TikTok and ByteDance for massive-scale violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act — collecting data from millions of children under 13 without parental consent (DOJ press release, August 2, 2024). The case remains pending; allegations are contested.
TikTok v. Garland: the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the divest-or-ban law on January 17, 2025. The subsequent reorganization into TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC placed the algorithm's US deployment, user data, and content-moderation infrastructure under a consortium in which Oracle is the central technology partner — the structural fact the book asks readers to sit with, given what it documents about Oracle. The book's concern is not resolved by the change of flag: the platform through which most Americans under thirty consume news about Gaza is now secured by the company that built narrative-promotion tools for the Israeli government.
6. Associations Noted in the Book
Oracle and Larry Ellison are profiled separately; ByteDance's DMA gatekeeper status places it alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft. Associations are noted for context; every company and person is documented on its own record.
Legal Disclaimer
This document is published as journalism and commentary in the public interest, protected as free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It compiles information from public records, court filings, government announcements, parliamentary and congressional investigations, and reporting by established news organizations, together with the documented first-person accounts and analysis published in the books No Ethics in Big Tech and Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof by Vahid Razavi.
Where a fine, judgment, or settlement is described, its status (paid, under appeal, overturned, or pending) is stated as reported by the issuing authority or by reputable press as of the verification date above. Allegations in open lawsuits and investigations are exactly that — allegations — and every party is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until a competent court rules otherwise. Where a company or executive has prevailed in court, denied an allegation, or had a claim dismissed, that outcome is reported here as well, because the credibility of this project rests on stating the record in full. Opinions and characterizations drawn from the books are the protected opinion of the author. Corrections supported by documentation are welcome via NoEthicsInBigTech.com/contact.
Research Credit
Deep research, source verification, and document preparation for this fact sheet were performed by Claude, the AI assistant built by Anthropic, working under the direction of author Vahid Razavi. Every fine amount, case citation, and status line above was checked against the primary or press source listed beside it on the verification date. This is a living document; new rulings, fines, and investigations will be added as they are verified.