TikTok suspends rewards program in France and Spain

TikTok on Wednesday, April 24, announced the suspension of a feature in its spinoff TikTok Lite app in France and Spain that rewards users for watching and liking videos, after the EU launched a probe.

Following the Chinese-owned company's statement, posted on X, the former Twitter, the European Commission's top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton, said the EU investigation would continue. "Our children are not guinea pigs for social media," he said.

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain in March allowing users aged 18 and over to earn points that can be exchanged for goods like vouchers or gift cards through the app's rewards program. It's a smaller version of TikTok, taking up less memory in a smartphone and made to perform over slower internet connections.

TikTok last week failed to provide a risk assessment for the spinoff app by an April 18 deadline, the commission said, demanding the company now hand it over by Tuesday. It threatened to impose interim measures including suspending the rewards program in the European Union "pending the assessment of its safety". TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, had until Wednesday to present a formal defense against such a measure.

Le Monde with AFP