The European Fee is investigating TikTok over a characteristic that launched in France and Spain that gives customers the flexibility to earn factors for finishing sure duties on the app, the fee stated Monday.
The investigation will look into whether or not TikTok’s “addictive” options of its “TikTok lite” program violated the European Union’s Digital Service Act (DSA) laws, which embody protections for minors on-line, the fee introduced.
The investigation will give attention to TikTok’s compliance with the laws — which went into impact in February — by means of its “Job and Reward Lite” program, and the measures the corporate has taken to mitigate dangers this system poses round influence on minors’ psychological well being.
The investigation into the reward program is the second probe of TikTok’s compliance with the DSA since February.
This system, which supplies lets customers earn factors for duties similar to watching movies, liking content material, following creators and welcoming associates to hitch the app, was launched “with out prior diligent evaluation of the dangers it entails” and “with out efficient danger mitigating measures,” in accordance with the fee.
The formal continuing was opened after the fee despatched TikTok a proper request for details about this system launching in Spain and France final week. TikTok failed to reply with the chance evaluation report and different requested data final week inside the 24-hour timeline given by the fee, in accordance with the announcement.
The fee gave the corporate a brand new deadline to submit the chance evaluation report back to the fee by Wednesday and till Could 3 for extra data requested.
TikTok faces hefty fines if it doesn’t reply inside the window.
If TikTok doesn’t reply to the request for data by the deadline, the fee stated it might impose a superb as much as 1 % of TikTok’s whole annual revenue or worldwide income and interval penalties as much as 5 % of TikTok’s common day by day revenue or worldwide income.
The Hill reached out to a TikTok spokesperson for remark.
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