Brussels:

The EU on Monday launched an investigation into TikTok’s spinoff Lite app and threatened to suspend an “addiction” feature on it that rewards users for watching and liking videos, amid child safety concerns.

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain in March, allowing users 18 and older to earn points that can be exchanged for things like vouchers or gift cards through the app’s rewards program.

The European Commission said in a statement that it was concerned about the app’s “risks of serious harm to the mental health of users”, including minors.

TikTok Lite is a smaller version of the popular TikTok app, takes up less memory in a smartphone and is built to perform on slow internet connections.

TikTok failed to provide a risk assessment for the spinoff app by the April 18 deadline last week, the commission said, demanding that the company now submit it by Tuesday.

It is threatening to impose interim measures, including suspending the bounty program in the European Union “pending an assessment of its safeguards”.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has until Wednesday to present a formal defense against such a measure.

The commission also warned that if TikTok fails to respond to the request, it will be fined one percent of its total annual revenue or its global turnover and five percent of its average daily revenue or worldwide annual turnover from time to time. Can impose penalty upto percent.

TikTok said it would continue to negotiate with the commission but insisted the program was not available to minors.

“We are disappointed with this decision — the TikTok Lite Rewards Hub is not available to under-18s, and there is a daily limit on video views,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

Second TikTok investigation

The EU investigation is the second against TikTok under a sweeping new law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires digital firms to police content online.

“We suspect that TikTok ‘Lite’ could be as toxic and addictive as cigarette ‘Lite’,” said Thierry Breton, the European Commission’s top tech enforcer.

“Until TikTok provides compelling evidence of its security, which it has so far failed to do, we are prepared to trigger DSA interim measures, including the suspension of TikTok Lite features,” Breton said.

The commission also asked TikTok about measures to mitigate “systemic risks” in its Lite app and gave the platform until May 3 to respond.

TikTok Lite users can win prizes if they log in daily for 10 days, if they spend time watching videos (with an upper limit of 60 to 85 minutes per day) and if they take certain actions, like videos Liking and following content creators.

The commission said it believed that TikTok launched the app “without a prior careful assessment of the risks, particularly related to the addictive effect of the platforms, and without taking effective risk mitigation measures”.

TikTok is one of 22 “very large” digital platforms, including Amazon, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, which must comply with stricter rules under the DSA since August last year.

The law gives the EU the power to slap companies with hefty fines that can reach up to six percent of a digital firm’s global annual revenue.

Repeat offenders may also find their platforms blocked in the 27-nation European Union.

In February, the Commission launched a formal investigation into TikTok under the DSA over alleged breaches of its obligations to protect minors online.

It has separately launched other investigations into X, formerly known as Twitter, and Chinese internet retailer AliExpress.

TikTok is also being squeezed across the Atlantic.

The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Saturday that would force TikTok to separate from ByteDance or face a nationwide ban in the United States, where it has about 170 million users.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)