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Antitrust body sees no monopolistic practices by TikTok
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The TikTok logo is pictured outside the company's US head office in Culver City, California, US, September 15, 2020. (Reuters/Mike Blake)
T
ikTok has rejected claims by a government minister that it poses a threat to small enterprises or business competition in general, while the country’s antitrust body says it sees nothing wrong in what the platform is doing, but will continue to closely monitor it.
Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) head Afif Hasbullah told reporters on Wednesday that the nature of e-commerce was multisided and TikTok’s service was just one characteristic of e-commerce.
“[If a company has an e-commerce platform] and sells [products], it has access to payment agents, advertising, etc., those are just the characteristics of the ecosystem,” said Afif.
“Doing it that way doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” he added, referring to the social-commerce services of the video-sharing platform owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
Earlier this month, Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Minister Teten Masduki had questioned TikTok’s expansion into e-commerce, arguing that the popular social media platform could become a monopoly and potentially threaten Indonesia’s small businesses.
He argued that the company should not be allowed to combine e-commerce and social media services, pointing to the possibility of social media platforms influencing online transactions.
Teten added that e-commerce companies should be prohibited from selling their own products through the online marketplaces they operate and urged lawmakers to issue a regulation to that effect.
