Britain's privacy watchdog hit TikTok with a multimillion-dollar penalty Tuesday for misusing children's data and violating other protections for users' personal information.

The Information Commissioner's Office said it issued a fine of 12.7 million pounds ($15.9 million) to the short-video sharing app, which is wildly popular with young people.

Twitter has removed the verification check mark on the main account of The New York Times, one of CEO Elon Musk's most despised news organizations.

The removal comes as many of Twitter's high-profile users are bracing for the loss of the blue check marks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the social media platform.

Twitter says it has removed thousands of tweets showing a poster promoting a "trans day of vengeance" protest in support of transgender rights in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

Ella Irwin, Twitter's head of Trust and Safety, said in a tweet Wednesday that the company automatically removed more than 5,000 tweets and retweets of a poster promoting the event.

William Shatner, Monica Lewinsky and other prolific Twitter commentators — some household names, others little-known journalists — could soon be losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity on the social media platform.

They could get the marks back by paying up to $11 a month. But some longtime users, including 92-year-old Star Trek legend Shatner, have balked at buying the premium service championed by Twitter's billionaire owner and chief executive Elon Musk.

U.S. lawmakers have grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about data security and harmful content, with some pushing to ban the popular short-video app nationwide.

A Singaporean native, Chew told the lawmakers that TikTok prioritizes user safety and as he sought to avert a ban by downplaying the app's ties to China.

TikTok's CEO plans to tell Congress that the video-sharing app is committed to user safety, data protection and security, and keeping the platform free from Chinese government influence.

Shou Zi Chew is due to answer questions Thursday from U.S. lawmakers concerned about the social media platform's effects on its young user base and possible national security risks posed by the popular app, which was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs.

TikTok on Tuesday rolled out updated rules and standards for content and users as it faces increasing pressure from Western authorities over concerns that material on the popular Chinese-owned video-sharing app could be used to push false information.

The company released a reorganized set of community guidelines that include eight principles to guide content moderation decisions.

If you're not told you are fired, are you really fired? At Twitter, probably. And then, sometimes, you get your job back — if you want it.

Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently was employed at Twitter, logged in to his computer last Sunday to do some work — only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.

TikTok has said that every account held by a user under the age of 18 will have a default 60-minute daily screen time limit in the coming weeks. The changes arrive during a period in which there are growing concerns among different governments about the app's security and ability to alter its algorithm to push certain posts.

The update also mirrors gaming rules imposed on minors in China, where TikTok's parent company ByteDance was formerly based. ByteDance now says it has no headquarters because it is a global business and that instead it has leaders in Singapore, New York and elsewhere managing its business. In 2021, Chinese authorities issued new rules that let minors play online games for only an hour a day and only on Fridays, weekends and public holidays — an effort to curb internet addiction.

The U.S. and Canada issued orders this week banning the use of TikTok on government-issued mobile devices as privacy and cybersecurity concerns about the video-sharing app grow.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, has long maintained that it does not share data with the Chinese government and that its data is not held in China. It also disputes accusations that it collects more user data than other social media companies, and insists that it is run independently by its own management.