Barely available, already banned? The TikTok Lite application, which gives virtual currencies to users for the time spent on the Chinese platform, came out at the end of March in France and Spain. However, the European Commission already has it on its list of suspicious programs, and it threatens to suspend it for the fear of the dependency it can create.
This is a new stone in the shoe of this application with 150 million monthly active users in Europe, which is focused on short and often viral videos, and still on the other side of the Atlantic, it is also under attack. The USA is preparing a bill that intimidates them to stop the social network on its territory if the app is not sold and still in the hands of ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, which is regarded as too close to the authorities in Beijing.
Guarding them from the evil of addiction is a task which they need to be brave enough to take on.
“These financial incentives that make people spend more time on the app can be addictive and result in excessive screen time and threaten the mental health of the users, especially the most vulnerable,” said a person who is assistant to Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market.
And “we are talking about the vulnerability” the Commission has foremost, the under age users. The never-ending flows of short, quick videos may appear to be funny, but they are a danger to our children’s mental health and they can be addicted, anxious, depressed, have eating disorders and have a hard time concentrating. We will not skip any steps to safeguard our young ones.
On April 17, the European Commission then dispatched TikTok a letter for information about this new service in order for the app to have the opportunity to prove that it has carried out a risk assessment of the rewards feature and that it has taken effective mitigation measures prior to launching it. A request that was not followed after 24 hours from Brussels to supply this data, as the new DSA (Digital Services Act) law has asked for this data.
TikTok Lite will be prohibited in Europe not long from now?
“We are launching a new non-compliance procedure against TikTok for not carefully looking at, rating and reducing the impact of the TikTok Lite rewards programme on the physical and mental health of its users,” adds the adviser to the European Commissioner for the Internal Market. We are giving TikTok to carry out the risk assessment report within 24 hours, or we will impose penalties for every day of the delay. We also have until 3 May to provide the additional information needed to assess compliance: The non-acceptance of the project within the stipulated time could also be one of the reasons for the sanctions of late fines.
Also, TikTok has the interest in being there for this time because, otherwise, the European Commission has the right from Thursday, April 25, to put a suspension on TikTok Lite in the European Union for 60 days so that they will have the time to check the safety of the rewards program while the European citizens would not be the guinea pigs. The 24 hours are gone, and the Chinese platform has less than two days to come up with the arguments in favor of its product. Otherwise, it will be just a dead idea on the Old Continent.
