the Chinese application poses “serious risks for the mental health of users”, according to the European Commission

In the sights of Brussels, which reserves the right to suspend TikTok Lite from Wednesday evening within the European Union, the “addictive rewards” of the application.

TikTok’s new application, “TikTok Lite”, is dangerous for the mental health of its users, according to Brussels. The European Commission is threatening to ban it from Wednesday evening, April 24. Visually, it is the copy of its large sister, slightly simplified but the real particularity of TikTok Lite is to encourage you to spend as much time there as possible. The more you scroll, the more you connect, and the more you encourage your loved ones to do so, the more money you make. Your virtual coins can be exchanged for PayPal gift cards or Amazon vouchers, with a maximum value of 500 euros.

TikTok Lite is “as toxic and as addictive as ‘light’ cigarettes”, tackles European Commissioner Thierry Breton. The Commission, which now plays the role of digital policeman for the 27, believes that the application, launched very discreetly at the end of March in France and Spain, poses “serious risks for the mental health of users. Risk of dependence, but also of anxiety, depression, eating and attention disorders… She mainly criticizes the platform for not having communicated to her any risk assessment, a mandatory procedure within the framework of the new legislation on digital services.

The European executive is therefore pulling out all the stops. Last Wednesday, the Commission sent a first warning to the platform but did not receive a response in time. On Monday she therefore opened a new procedure which grants TikTok additional time… until Tuesday evening. In the absence of a satisfactory response, Brussels reserves the right to suspend TikTok Lite from Thursday within the Union for 60 renewable days. It can also impose a fine on the group of up to 1% of its global turnover, or more than 160 million dollars.

Finding new users

In response, the group Chinese ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, said to himself “disappointed” he defends himself by explaining that his new application, available for several months already in Japan and Korea, is officially reserved for adults and that the accumulation of virtual coins stops after 85 minutes of viewing per day. In September, TikTok was already fined 345 million euros in the European Union for not having sufficiently taken into account the risks for those under 13. The social network has lost several million users and is now seeking to gain new ones.

While in the United States, the Senate, in the wake of the House of Representatives, must approve on Tuesday a text which validates the pure and simple withdrawal of the application if it does not break its links with China, in Europe it is It’s more about setting limits, bringing the digital giants into line rather than banning them. Discussions between TikTok and Brussels will therefore continue.