The European Commission announced on Monday (August 5) that it has concluded its investigation into the “reward feature” of TikTok’s new application “TikTok Lite” and accepted TikTok’s commitment to permanently withdraw the incentive program from the European Union in order to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act.
TikTok Lite is a new low-bandwidth version of the TikTok app offered in certain markets.
According to a report by Reuters on Monday, the Chinese company ByteDance’s application “TikTok Lite” introduced a “reward program” on April 10 this year in France and Spain, claiming that users could earn points by discovering new content or completing certain actions, such as watching and liking videos. These points could be exchanged for Amazon vouchers.
Shortly after the launch of this “reward program” in France and Spain, the EU requested TikTok to conduct a risk assessment of the application in April due to concerns that it could potentially “encourage addictive behavior” and have a negative impact on the mental health of children and other users.
Shortly after the investigation began, TikTok temporarily suspended this incentive program in the European Union. The EU had threatened to use its temporary powers to shut down the feature.
Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, large online platforms are required to report potential risks to the EU before launching new features and take effective measures to mitigate these risks.
The EU’s administrative body stated that TikTok has now made legally binding commitments to withdraw the incentive program from the EU and not to introduce any other programs that evade the Digital Services Act.
The European Commission stated, “Any violation of these commitments will immediately be considered a breach of the Digital Services Act and may result in fines.”
This settlement means that the European Commission did not formally find TikTok in violation of the Digital Services Act and therefore did not impose any penalties. However, if TikTok fails to comply with its commitments, it may face immediate sanctions with fines of up to 6% of its global annual turnover, without the need for a new investigation.
The European Commission added that a broader investigation is ongoing to determine whether TikTok has violated online content rules aimed at protecting children and ensuring advertising transparency. This investigation was launched in February this year, putting TikTok at risk of substantial fines.
According to the U.S. tech news site “TechCrunch,” this investigation involves TikTok’s main algorithms and other areas. The European Commission expressed concerns that a tracking-based recommendation engine design by TikTok could lead to the “rabbit hole effects,” where individuals watching videos on a particular topic could be recommended more extreme content, thus exacerbating the spread of harmful content.
The EU also raised concerns that TikTok has not implemented strong enough age verification measures to protect children from inappropriate content. Additionally, the EU is investigating TikTok’s compliance with transparency requirements under the Digital Services Act.