The European Commission is threatening to suspend the TikTok Lite rewards programme, unless the Chinese-owned app provides answers within 24 hours.
The European Commission on Monday gave TikTok a 24-hour deadline to submit an assessment of potential health risks related to its new app TikTok Lite or face daily fines.
It comes after TikTok “failed to provide” information earlier this month.
TikTok Lite, a slimmed down version of TikTok, launched in France and Spain in March. It is optimized for slower internet connections and uses less memory.
It enables users over the age of 18 to earn points that can be redeemed for vouchers or gift cards.
The Commission says it wants the Chinese-owned company to show how it assessed the addictiveness and mental health risks of the scheme"
If TikTok fails to reply within the 24-hour deadline the company faces fines amounting to one percent of its annual revenue.
The bloc’s, executive, also announced Monday it was launching a second probe to determine if TikTok breached the EU’s Digital Service Act.
You’re doing good work EU, keep it up!
The Commission says it wants the Chinese-owned company to show how it assessed the addictiveness and mental health risks of the scheme
“We found it to be super addictive and harmful. That’s why we pushed it forward.”
It took until the end to say, but you earn these points and get these gift cards or vouchers for watching and liking videos.
Which, you must admit, sounds like it would go against a regular company’s business model…
Isn’t Microsoft Rewards similar?
Yeah I’d be interested to see how many interactions it takes to actually earn them. Could set up a bot in an emulator to try and get it lol
First few, and then more and more. It’s not new idea for sure.
Yeah that about what I expected. Gotta get a bot farm set up that can make new accounts hehe
More watch time/interaction = more algorithm training and ad exposure. I would imagine the profits will outweigh the expenses, especially if the pay is $1 for every 50 watched videos or something.
It’s way worse, it’s a handful of (less than 10 IIRC) cents of monopoly money for watching over an hour’s content.
There is truly no value proposition whatsoever as literally any kind of even terribly sub-minimum wage work would be more lucrative, yet it apparently appeals to (typically) students with zero income.
It’s cyberpunk dystopia except instead of cool cyber-implants you get a lame rectangle-shaped dopamine pump that also gives you crippling depression.
People don’t use these things as primary income. It’s an incentive to keep swiping because they’ll say to themselves “just a couple more and I can get a $5 gift card. I’m here anyway.”
And so they just keep swiping. They become addicted.
And in come the farmers to game the system which doesn’t generate revenue for the advertisers but tiktok would still rake in the impressions.
Sucks to be them!
Well, it means you are incentivized to scroll through the app more, meaning you see more ads as well. 110% sure it pays off for them
China and Russia a waging an information war against the West. As long as our decision-makers won’t even admit and act on that, we are losing
What a way to ramp up engagement, eh? I’ll bet Zuckerberg is beyond livid because none of his highly paid staff thought of that one
So what’s behind this lately heavy interest of politicians to take care of their population digital life?. I’m not saying is great. But I don’t trust politicians so what’s behind ?. What are we going to notice in the future and it will be already late and would need to revert again another shitty social manipulation.
What’s the difference between Lite and the original app?
Tiktok lite is a slimmed down version of tiktok. It is optimized for slower internet connections and uses less memory.
It enables users over the age of 18 to earn points that can be redeemed for vouchers or gift cards.
Well yeah, but that’s it? How does it differ from Bing Rewards or so?
Weird how much scrutiny Tiktok gets while western companies get free passes.
The EU has issued plenty of fines and injunctions recently against Western companies, just look the EU’s recent history with Facebook, Google and Apple.
Meanwhile they all maintain monopolies and none of them are forced to sell their business because of a trade war.
I was kind of wondering why a simple video app is in the spotlight negatively. Like… Isn’t tiktok just a newer version of Vine or Musically?
Sort of. It’s short-form video, yes, but it’s also designed to hook you in. Another concern is that due to Chinese control, it could be used for physiological influence or analysis, propaganda, or data collection from whatever the app can find on your device. (The Chinese government exerts strong control over Chinese companies, which is why it’s more of a concern here than for Vine or Instagram.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prism
Can you show us the wikipedia page detailing how Tiktok shares user data with the CCP without users’ knowledge?
I’m only answering the question of why it’s in the spotlight negatively, not passing judgement. But if you want a Wikipedia article, this section is pretty long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok#Privacy_and_security_concerns
The United States has not offered any evidence of TikTok sharing such information with Chinese authorities.
It’s because it makes a lot of money and there is a trade war going on between the US and China.
That means useful idiots are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure their rulers get that money and not some other rulers.
We have detailed information about how the US government collects user data, and they did this without users’ knowledge until the Snowden leaks.
There is no concrete information that Tiktok shares information with the CCP without users’ knowledge, only FUD from useful idiots and influencers.
