TikTok proprietor ByteDance is dealing with recent questions on its compliance with the European Union’s Digital Companies Act (DSA), a web based governance and content material moderation framework that places a authorized obligation on bigger platforms to mitigate systemic dangers in areas like youth psychological well being.
The EU’s newest considerations about TikTok’s DSA compliance heart on the launch of TikTok Lite. This can be a model of the video sharing app which lately launched (“test launched”, per TikTok) in France and Spain — letting 18+ yr outdated customers there earn factors for sure in-app actions, similar to liking content material or following new creators. TikTok says these factors could be redeemed for reward playing cards or “coins” that may be gifted to creators.
The reward-linked engagement function seems to have triggered concern within the EU about probably addictive design which might have a detrimental impression on younger folks’s psychological well being. The European Fee oversees platforms’ compliance with DSA system threat necessities.
In a press release asserting the request for info (RFI), the Fee stated it’s requested TikTok for extra particulars on the chance evaluation it ought to have carried out earlier than deploying the brand new app within the EU.
“This concerns the potential impact of the new ‘Task and Reward Lite’ programme on the protection of minors, as well as on the mental health of users, in particular in relation to the potential stimulation of addictive behaviour,” it wrote, including that it’s additionally requesting information concerning the measures TikTok has put in place to mitigate such systemic dangers.
TikTok has been given 24 hours to offer the chance evaluation for TikTok Lite. It has till April 26 to offer different requested info, after which the Fee stated it is going to analyse its reply and assess subsequent steps, similar to whether or not or to not open a proper investigation.
Reached for touch upon the Fee’s RFI, a TikTok spokesperson stated: “We have already been in direct contact with the Commission regarding this product and will respond to the request for information.”
ByteDance, which owns TikTok, is certainly one of round two dozen bigger on-line platforms which might be topic to the strictest layer of DSA guidelines — requiring them to take steps to mitigate systemic dangers use of their platforms might trigger. Penalties for failing to adjust to the regulation can attain as much as 6% of worldwide annual turnover which might result in some hefty fines for TikTok for any confirmed compliance failures.
The broader impression of the pan-EU regulation is more likely to be on platforms’ product design selections, with EU enforcers having powers that would probably power the reform of whole enterprise fashions in the event that they’re discovered to have poisonous impacts.
TikTok is already underneath investigation within the EU in relation to a lot of DSA obligations, together with within the space of safety of minors and the chance administration of addictive design and dangerous content material, after the Fee introduced a proper probe again in February. However the newest RFI suggests the EU is frightened there are extra problems with concern.
It’s specific attention-grabbing to see the Fee intervening so swiftly after an tentative product launch — because the TikTok Lite app solely seems to have been reside within the two markets for a really temporary interval. The Fee says it launched this month. (And right here, for instance, is a Spanish YouTube video on the reward function which was posted slightly below every week in the past the place the vlogger says this system for incomes cash “just by watching videos” has solely simply been made out there, and up to now solely on some Android units.)
It’s not clear whether or not TikTok performed a DSA threat evaluation for the brand new reward program forward of launching TikTok Lite within the two EU markets. A TikTok spokesman didn’t reply once we requested about that. However the regulation’s give attention to systemic threat basically makes such a step compulsory for options which might be more likely to enchantment to minors.
TikTok did inform us it requires TikTok Lite customers to confirm that they’re 18 or older as a way to acquire factors by means of their use of the app. Requested concerning the robustness of the age verification know-how it’s utilizing, its spokesman stated the processes concerned can embody issues like “submitting a selfie with a photo ID (e.g passport or drivers license), credit card authorisations etc”.
Different restrictions on the reward program TikTok highlighted are a most restrict on rewards it stated is “roughly” equal to €1 per day. It additionally stated there’s a most every day video time restrict for rewards of 1 hour — so, presumably, you may solely earn factors for one hour’s value of video watching, after which you received’t accrue any extra factors that day.
How clearly such limits are communicated to TikTok Lite customers could also be one space of curiosity to EU enforcers as they ask the platform about its design selections.
Shopper teams in Europe have previously raised concerns about numerous points of TikTok’s platform design, together with its use of digital forex to create engagement incentives. Complaints raised again in 2021 have been funnelled by means of the Shopper Safety Cooperation Community, with the Fee concerned in encouraging a dialogue between the 2 sides. Then, in June 2022, the process culminated in TikTok providing a sequence of commitments — together with pledging to spice up transparency round its digital cash and digital items.
Nevertheless judging by the Fee’s oversight of TikTok’s method to DSA compliance the platform could must go additional to fulfill enforcers of the rebooted EU Web rulebook, which got here absolutely into power this February — however with systemic threat parts anticipated to be revered as of late August 2023.
