The TikTok platform, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, announced this Wednesday that it has suspended reward functions in the TikTok Lite app after the European Commission launched an investigation.
“TikTok always strives to cooperate constructively with the European Commission and other regulatory authorities. Therefore, we are voluntarily suspending the rewards features in TikTok Lite while we resolve the issues,” says an unnamed TikTok representative in a note sent to Lusa this Wednesday.
The European Commission announced Monday it was opening an investigation into the TikTok Lite app over its functionality that rewards screen time with virtual currency convertible into gift cards.
The European Commission, which now acts as the EU’s digital police, says the mechanism poses a “serious risk to users’ mental health” by forcing people to stay connected.
However, the platform did not submit a pre-launch risk assessment to Brussels, in line with its obligations under the new digital services legislation (DSA). The new service was launched in France and Spain at the end of March.
Previously, a company representative, also unnamed, had already expressed disappointment with the opening of the procedure, pointing out that the rewards program “is not available to children under 18 years of age and includes a daily limit on video viewing.”
The European Commission issued the first warning on April 17, asking the platform to provide an assessment of the risks associated with this deployment within 24 hours and detail the means implemented to mitigate them. But “TikTok did not provide the document on time,” the commission explained then.
TikTok Lite rewards users with “tokens” (cryptocurrency) if they log in daily for ten days, spend time watching videos (limited to 60–85 minutes per day), and perform certain actions such as liking videos and following creators content. . These coins can then be redeemed for gift cards on affiliate sites such as Amazon.
Thanks to short videos, TikTok, which has attracted more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, has been accused for years in the US and Europe of causing addictive behavior among teenagers.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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