On Monday 22 April, the European Commission announced that it had launched a second investigation into TikTok, 2 months after the first (see EUROPE 13353/16).
This procedure comes 5 days after the Commission asked TikTok to provide a risk assessment report on its new application, ‘TikTok Lite’, which launched on 24 April in France and Spain (see EUROPE 13393/10).
This application is suspected by the Commission of posing “serious risks” to its users, particularly young people, through its rewards programme, ‘Task and Reward Lite’. This programme offers a way of making money by using the application and could lead to addiction and dependency issues.
On Wednesday 17 April, the Commission asked TikTok to provide a report on the risks of ‘TikTok Lite’ and the measures taken to mitigate them.
The opening of the investigation on Monday follows a lack of response from TikTok, which has never provided the Commission with any documents, according to a senior official.
The Commission suspects that the application and reward programme were launched without any risk assessment or effective moderation measures.
For the first time, in accordance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), the formal request for information is based on a legally binding Commission decision.
“This shows that when we say ‘the protection of minors is a priority of the DSA’, we really mean it, and that platforms need to take risk assessment obligations seriously when launching programmes and apps in Europe”, commented a senior Commission official.
TikTok has 48 hours, until 23 April, to send the Commission its risk report on ‘TikTok Lite’ and until 3 May for all the other information requested.
If it fails to do so, the application faces a fine of up to 1% of its total sales, or more than $160 million.
The Commission has also stated that it reserves the right to suspend ‘TikTok Lite’ in the EU from Wednesday 24 April, in the light of the information it receives - or does not receive - from the platform between now and then.
The suspension would last 60 days and could be renewed.
Given TikTok’s failure to submit the risk assessment that should have been carried out even before the launch of ‘TikTok Lite’ the Commission suspects a ‘prima facie’ breach of the DSA and considers that there are “risks of serious harm to the mental health of users”.
“We are ready to take provisional measures and suspend the TikTok Lite ‘reward programme’ if we do not receive irrefutable proof that it is safe”, said the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, when the investigation was announced. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)