TikTok Lite: EU calls for solutions on money-for-views model – BBC Information

Symbol supply, Getty ImagesArticle informationAuthor, Imran Rahman-JonesRole, Generation reporter17 April 2024, 15:32 BSTUpdated 1 hour agoTikTok has been given 24 hours to reply to the Ecu Fee over a model of the app which will pay customers for viewing movies. TikTok Lite introduced in France and Spain this week.Ecu Commissioner Thierry Breton has in comparison it to the speculation of “gentle” cigarettes, asking whether or not it was once “as addictive and poisonous.”TikTok stated in a remark it could “reply to the request for info.”It says it does now not lately have plans to release the Lite app in different international locations in Europe.A slimmed down model of the traditional platform, Lite’s Activity & Rewards characteristic will pay customers the an identical of a couple of pence in line with day for observing movies and tasty at the app.The Ecu Fee has requested TikTok for main points of the danger evaluate it performed prior to launching the characteristic.Its issues relate to the have an effect on on youngsters, psychological well being and habit.The Fee says it needs knowledge “concerning the measures the platform has installed position to mitigate such systemic dangers,” and has given a cut-off date of 26 April.Skip Twitter contentAllow Twitter content material?This text incorporates content material supplied by means of Twitter. We ask in your permission prior to anything else is loaded, as they is also the use of cookies and different applied sciences. You might wish to learn Twitter cookie coverage and privateness coverage prior to accepting. To view this content material select ‘settle for and proceed’.Settle for and continueWarning: The BBC isn’t liable for the content material of exterior websites.Finish of Twitter contentUnder the Activity & Rewards characteristic, customers can earn cash for “duties” comparable to observing, liking or sharing movies. Consistent with TikTok, the utmost day by day display screen time eligible for rewards is one hour, whilst customers won’t be able to earn greater than about €1 (£0.85) in line with day.Customers will even must end up they’re over 18 years outdated as a way to earn rewards.Consistent with French newspaper Le Monde, which has examined the characteristic, customers can simplest earn rewards on movies advised by means of their algorithmic feeds and now not movies which they seek for particularly. “The customers don’t have any selection,” the newspaper says. “Simplest viewing content material proposed by means of the applying is rewarded.”The file additionally in comparison the characteristic to a online game, “showering its avid gamers with rewards in keeping with their task to stay them coming again.”The rewards programme is a “totally other manner” to pursuing social media’s objective of retaining folks engaged, in keeping with Dr Sarah Hodge, a cyberpsychologist at Tub Spa College.”They are making it a lot more particular and rewarding folks… a lot more overtly,” Dr Hodge, who’s a consultant in gaming and virtual habit, advised the BBC.She added that the rewards will have a big impact in spite of being small in monetary phrases.”It is vitally motivating and relaxing to get rewards, and I believe it simply assists in keeping pulling us again,” she stated.This can be problematic for individuals who are seeking to scale back their time at the app.”If [somebody] had been seeking to scale back the time they are spending on it and there are those further issues to take a look at and folks stay folks engaged, this is going to motive friction,” stated Dr Hodge.The EU vs TikTokThe EU’s Virtual Services and products Act, which got here into power ultimate 12 months, gave the bloc extra energy to tackle large tech firms. It’s beneath those new regulations that the Fee has demanded solutions from TikTok.In February, the Fee opened formal lawsuits in opposition to the social media corporate, investigating whether or not it had damaged laws together with the ones on information coverage, coverage for kids and policing damaging content material.On the time, TikTok stated it could cooperate with the investigation and endured to paintings with mavens in on-line protection.

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