TikTok complies with European Union requests. While the Chinese company ByteDance announces a legal standoff against the United States’ decision aimed at forcing it to cut ties with the American version of TikTok, the company chooses to comply with the demands of the EU. The “rewards” system, which leads users to spend time in front of their screen, will be suspended, ByteDance announced this Wednesday, April 24.
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
This decision comes a few hours before the ultimatum formulated by the European Commission expires. ByteDance claims to suspend “ voluntarily » the rewards system TikTokLite. Thierry Breton, the commissioner European responsible for the Internal Market, emphasizes for his part that the procedures against the risk of addiction will continue. “ Our children are not guinea pigs », he adds.
The Commission had threatened the platform to impose from Thursday April 25 the suspension of the system called “tasks and rewards”. By watching a minimum number of videos, giving a positive rating, a “like”, and logging in every day, users could collect virtual coins, each worth one euro cent. These could be exchanged for, for example, an Amazon gift certificate.
This suspension is the result of the European regulation on digital services which came into force in August and which aims to protect European users on the Internet, in particular children. TikTokLite’s rewards system is supposedly only for those over 18, but for many in Europe, ID verification is too easy to bypass.
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