Round-up of the latest industry news – April 2022

Regulatory Watch

Italy’s antitrust regulator (AGCM) has said it will lift a ban on Sky’s Italian business, relating to exclusive content on its online service platform. The 3-year ban was imposed in 2019 following Sky’s acquisition of some of the TV assets of Mediaset. Regulators said this would limit competition. AGCM says that changes in the industry following the coronavirus pandemic and the absence of any new premium content meant that it had decided the ban could be lifted.

TikTok is under investigation by US government agencies over its handling of child sexual abuse material. The app has been struggling to moderate a flood of new content. Dealing with sexual predators has been an enduring challenge for social media platforms. However, TikTok's young user base has made it a vulnerable target. ‘It is a perfect place for predators to meet, groom and engage children’, said Erin Burke, unit chief of the child exploitation investigations unit at Homeland Security’s cybercrime division.