The European Commission on Monday ordered TikTok to submit an assessment of potential health risks related to its new app TikTok Lite within 24 hours or face daily fines.
The legally-binding order concerns the app's rewards scheme, which allows users to collect points by watching videos and exchange them for things of value, such as Amazon vouchers, according to commission officials.
The Chinese-owned company has 24 hours to show how it assessed the addictiveness and mental health risks of the scheme, particularly for children, prior to launch. The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) requires large platforms to assess and mitigate such risks.
The commission is also giving TikTok 48 hours to show that it has complied with the DSA and that there is no risk of serious harm, after which the EU executive could order the platform to suspend the new features, pending further investigation.
If TikTok doesn't supply the risk assessment within 24 hours, it could face a fine of 1% of its global annual revenue, plus periodic fines of 5% of its daily revenue, commission officials said.
If the commission ultimately concludes that Tik Tok has violated the DSA's risk assessment and mitigation rules, it could fine the company up to 6% of global annual revenue.
TikTok Lite, which is similar to the wildly popular TikTok app but uses less memory and bandwidth, was recently launched in Spain in France.
