The European Union Threatens To Suspend The Main Feature Of TikTok Lite Due To User Mental Health Concerns

EU industrial head Thierry Breton (photo: x @ThierryBreton)

JAKARTA - The European Union threatened to suspend key TikTok Lite features in member countries on Thursday, April 25. This was announced by the European Commission that TikTok would not provide satisfactory response to regulatory concerns regarding the impact of the new app on the user's mental health.

The move will take under the EU's Digital Services Act (DMA) Act which requires large online platforms and large search engines to make more efforts to tackle malicious and illegal content or face fines of up to 6% of their annual global turnover.

"Except TikTok provides convincing evidence of its security, which until now has failed, we are ready to take DMA interim action including suspending the TikTok Lite feature which is suspected to cause addiction," said EU industry chief Thierry Breton, in a statement on Monday, April 22.

TikTok has not yet responded to the report.

The failure of TikTok in responding to requests for information from the Commission could result in fines of up to 1% of the company's annual global turnover.

EU executives say TikTok has 24 hours to provide a risk assessment report related to TikTok Lite or face fines, and until May 3 to provide the requested other information.

TikTok launched TikTok Lite in France and Spain this month but the Commission said that TikTok did not file a previous risk assessment report as required in the DMA.

The main feature is a reward program that allows users to get points when doing certain tasks on the platform, such as watching videos, liking content, following content creators, or inviting friends to join.