The TikTok platform announced this Wednesday that it has suspended reward functions in the TikTok Lite application. The decision follows the opening of an investigation by the European Commission.
“TikTok always seeks to collaborate constructively with the European Commission and other regulators. We are, therefore, voluntarily suspending the reward functions on TikTok Lite while we address the concerns raised”, says a note from the platform.
The European Commission (EC) announced on Monday the opening of an investigation into the TikTok Lite application. At issue is the functionality that rewards time spent on the screen with virtual coins convertible into gift cards. The new service was launched in France and Spain at the end of March.
The community executive considers that the mechanism presents “serious risks to the mental health of users”, by forcing people to remain connected. Furthermore, the platform from the Chinese group ByteDance did not communicate a risk assessment to Brussels before launch, as stipulated in the new legislation on digital services (DSA).
TikTok had already expressed disappointment with the opening of the procedure, pointing out that the rewards program “is not accessible to children under 18 and includes a daily limit for viewing videos”.
Brussels issued a first alert on April 17, asking the platform to provide within 24 hours an assessment of the risks associated with this deployment and detail the means implemented to reduce them. But “TikTok did not provide the document in time”, the EC explained at the time.
TikTok Lite rewards users with ‘tokens’ if they log in daily for ten days, spend time watching videos (with a limit of 60-85 minutes per day) and perform certain actions such as ‘liking’ videos and follow content creators.
These coins can then be exchanged for gift cards on partner sites, such as Amazon.
With short videos, TikTok, which has attracted more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, has been accused for several years in the United States and Europe of causing addictive behavior among teenagers.
