Last Wednesday, Italy was shaken by a non-Covid related tragedy: the death of a 10-year-old girl who reportedly suffocated by choking herself with a belt. Authorities are looking into the connection with a viral online trend, dubbed “blackout challenge,” which has gained traction on a popular social media app, TikTok.

The event prompted Italy’s privacy watchdog to call on ByteDance, the company behind the app, to temporarily revoke the access of all users whose age was not verified. The company, which is yet to comply, has stated that it is studying the legal aspect of this injunction.

“We did not expect an immediate reaction,” said Giulio Scorza, a member of the privacy watchdog, to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, citing the lack of precedents. However, he later added that “if this silent inactivity persists until halfway through next week, or in absence of a notice, we’ll have to acknowledge that.”

The Italian privacy watchdog (known as the Privacy Guarantor) already had its eyes fixed on TikTok’s success among minors. In December 2020, following a formal investigation, the Guarantor announced formal proceedings against the app, citing the need to protect Italian children. At the same time, it also pushed the EU to investigate the app’s handling of its users’ private data.

However, these concerns predate 2020. The Italian investigation spun off a December 2019 report by COPASIR, Italy’s parliamentary security committee. Back then Raffaele Volpi, the body’s president and member of the opposition, said he had reason to believe that “TikTok has been invented by China to profile young peoople.”

TikTok has always responded to this sort of criticism by remarking its compliance with national age limitations and privacy laws. Sadly, however, chronicles have proven that these limitations don’t hold a candle to the reality test.

In Italy, users must be at least 14 to sing up for an online service without a guardian’s permission. And yet, according to Corriere, seven under-14s out of 10 in Italy lie about their age to subscribe to social media.

The app’s easy and fun interface, its powerful creative tools, its (mostly quirky) viral trends and the sense of community it fosters – heightened as pandemic restrictions impact the kids’ off-screen time – are all elements that help to understand TikTok’s explosive success, especially among the youngest.

“Compassion prevents [us] from evaluating the behaviour of the parent’s victims,” commented Mario Morcellini, director of the High School of Communication and Technology at Unitelma – Sapienza, the online offspring of the University of Rome.

The expert then highlighted the amount of time the child had been spending on the internet, as testified by her several active social media accounts, and confirmed by her own father. That time, he said, is usually devolved to the slow process of learning. Nowadays, however, the quick gratifications of the internet are substituting it.

This process “has accelerated steeply because nobody is capable of helping parents to understand the phenomenon of their kids’ digital dedication,” continued Mr Morcellini. In essence, he argued, we’re all at fault. But most of all, we’re late.

“The Guarantor’s decision to suspend the social media is indisputable, but it’s late,” he continued, “as is the legislation on this sort of matters.” Then again, he argued, the institutions do not have the proper instruments to act in a timely manner.

“Rules are fundamental, because the web is an endless, extremely accessible territory,” remarked Massimiliano Padula, president of Italy’s Coordination of Communication Associations and professor at the Vatican’s university.

But more than that, Mr Padula stressed the need to avoid the simplistic narrative of demonizing the web and “reclaim the role of parents, teachers or institutions, which cannot and must not delegate their responsibilities to a device.”

The child’s death comes as dreadful news for TikTok, which has been enjoying a lockdown-propelled mass adoption. ByteDance, to date, is the most successful start-up in history.

As recently as October 2020, the company decided to establish its office for Southern Europe in the Italian business hub of Milan, partly owing to the city’s connection with leading fashion brands (and the growing, extremely lucrative collaboration between them and TikTok).