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The European Commission has closed a Digital Services Act ( DSA ) investigating of a wages feature of speech in TikTok Lite by accepting commitments from the societal media giant to permanently withdraw the characteristic from the EU .
The TikTok Lite “ task and advantage ” mechanism , launched in France and Spain earlier this year , lets users earn points for doing in - app bodily process like watching and liking videos . These points could be exchanged for Amazon vouchers . TikTok Lite is an substitute , lower - bandwidth variation of TikTok ’s app that the company offers in some market .
TikTok has also agreed not to sample and beleaguer its commitment , such as by launching the same feature article under a dissimilar name or deploy a adaptation that help as an tantamount option , accord to the Commission . Although the settlement applies to the TikTok Lite reward mechanism the EU was investigating , it ’s not a blanket prohibition on TikTok launching any rewards features in the future .
When the EU opened a investigation of the rewards featureback in April , the Commission said it was worried the design of the mechanism might negatively impact the mental health of young users by “ excite habit-forming behavior . ”
TikTok hadtemporarily suspendedthe rewards mechanism in the EU soon after the Commission launched its probe . The EU had imperil to apply interim powers to keep out down the feature while it enquire concerns that it was encouraging people to drop unreasonable amount of time on the app .
Briefing diarist on background , a senior Commission functionary said the enforcer is happy with the effect as it has delivered a ready result that enables EU citizens , include bush league , to be protect .
The settlement does mean the EC has not officially found TikTok to be in rift of the DSA , so there ’s no penalty . However , if TikTok fails to keep to its commitments , the Commission emphasized that the company could be sanctioned immediately under the DSA , which earmark for amercement of up to 6 % of global annual employee turnover without the need for a saucy investigation . So TikTok has a pretty bountiful compliance incentive here .
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The Commission said it would supervise TikTok ’s compliance to its commitment using existing processes and DSA powers , including with the assist of Member State - level agency that superintend compliance with the regularisation ’s universal rules .
Commenting in a statement , Thierry Breton , the EU ’s internal grocery commissioner , said : “ The available brain time of young Europeans is not a up-to-dateness for societal media — and it never will be . We have prevail the permanent withdrawal of TikTok Lite Rewards program , which could have had very habit-forming consequence . The DSA is in full swing . ”
TikTok spokesperson Elliot Burton sent TechCrunch a statement about the colonisation : “ We always seek to occupy constructively with the European Commission and other regulators . TikTok is proud of to have reached an amicable answer and has now withdrawn the TikTok Lite reward programme which was launched in France and Spain in April , which we had already voluntarily suspended . ”
While this TikTok DSA case is now closed , another , more widely - ranging investigating announcedback in Februaryis still on-going .
That face concerns the main TikTok app ’s algorithm , among other areas . The Commission has said it ’s worried the design of the tracking - based recommender engine may lead to “ lapin muddle effects , ” where users who consider one telecasting on a topic can be recommended more extreme video that could lead to an amplification of harmful mental object , such as video upgrade rust disorders .
The EU is also interest TikTok is not using rich enough age - assurance standard to protect kids from accessing inappropriate contentedness . TikTok ’s compliance with DSA transparence requirements are also being inquire .
For more on how the DSA and its sister regularisation , the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ) , are touch Big Tech platforms , check out our earlier reportage .
