Brussels threatens to suspend the new TikTok Lite app for being “toxic and addictive”

The European Commission has opened a procedure against TikTok to resolve whether the launch in Spain and France of its new application, TikTok Lite, may have violated the Digital Services Act (DSA). The regulations require large platforms to provide a risk assessment report and include measures to mitigate any systemic risk before launching any product.

The Commission has given TikTok until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23, to provide the report, until Wednesday the 24th to provide arguments, and until May 3 for the rest of the information it requests. If TikTok does not meet that deadline, Brussels may impose fines of up to 1% of TikTok’s annual revenue or global turnover and periodic sanctions of up to 5% of TikTok’s average daily revenue or global annual turnover. The Commission also reserves the right to suspend TikTok Lite because it sees a danger to the mental health of adolescents.

“It is possible that TikTok has launched TikTok Lite without evaluating the risk of addictive behavior, especially for minors,” the vice president of the European Commission has written on social networks. Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager. His Internal Market colleague, Thierry Breton, added: “We suspect that the TikTok Lite feature is toxic and addictive, particularly for children. Unless TikTok provides compelling evidence of security (which it has not done so far), we are willing to activate interim Digital Services Act measures, including suspending the TikTok Lite ‘rewards program.'”

TikTok Lite gives “points” for logging in every day, watching videos, and recommending the app to other users. TikTok’s intention is to collect at most 1 euro per day, which can be given to creators or exchanged for gift vouchers from Amazon and other platforms. TikTok’s goal with Lite is, according to the company, to accelerate its growth among adult users, the weak point of its audience.

But Brussels is suspicious about how this program may affect minors. The Commission believes that the risks have not been sufficiently assessed and is concerned “particularly those related to the addictive effect of the platforms” and is especially “more worrying for children, given the alleged absence of effective age verification mechanisms.” on TikTok.” Although the company says that the target is adults, the age control to use TikTok is, as on other platforms, avoidable. To collect money from the rewards program, TikTok Lite requires a bank card, a video to be able to identify the user’s age by their face, or an identity document.

This is the second investigation against TikTok under the Digital Services Act. In February 2024, the Commission already opened a first procedure to evaluate whether TikTok could have violated this law in protection of minors, advertising transparency, access to data for researchers and risk management of addictive and harmful design.