Technology
TikTok Lite: EU closes addictive design case after TikTok pledges not to reinstate rewards mechanism

The European Commission has closed its investigation into the TikTok Lite rewards feature under the Digital Services Act (DSA), accepting the social media giant’s commitment to permanently withdraw the feature within the EU.
TikTok Lite’s “tasks and rewards” mechanism, launched in France and Spain earlier this 12 months, lets users earn points for completing actions within the app, resembling watching and liking videos. These points might be redeemed for Amazon vouchers. TikTok Lite is an alternate, lower-bandwidth version of the TikTok app that the corporate offers in some markets.
TikTok also agreed not to attempt to circumvent its commitment, for instance by launching the identical feature under a distinct name or implementing a version that serves as an equivalent alternative, according to the Commission. While the settlement covers the TikTok Lite rewards mechanism that the EU was investigating, it’s not a blanket ban on TikTok launching any rewards features in the longer term.
When the EU launched an investigation into the rewards feature in April, the Commission raised concerns that the design of the mechanism could negatively impact the mental health of young users since it “stimulates addictive behaviour”.
TikTok temporarily suspended its rewards mechanism within the EU shortly after the Commission opened an investigation. The EU threatened to use temporary powers to disable the feature while it investigated concerns that it encouraged people to spend excessive amounts of time on the app.
Briefing journalists on the situation, a senior Commission official said the enforcement body was pleased with the final result because it had managed to quickly deliver the intended results, ensuring that EU residents, including minors, were protected.
The settlement means the EC has not formally found that TikTok has breached the DSA, so there isn’t a penalty. However, if TikTok fails to honour its commitments, the Commission has stressed that the corporate might be immediately penalised under the DSA, which allows for penalties of up to 6% of world annual turnover without the necessity for a brand new investigation. So TikTok has a reasonably large incentive to comply here.
The Commission said it might monitor TikTok’s compliance with its obligations using existing procedures and powers under the DSA, including through Member State authorities that oversee compliance with the overall principles of the Regulation.
Commenting in an announcement, Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner for Internal Market, said: “The available brain time of young Europeans is not the currency of social media – and never will be. We have achieved the permanent withdrawal of the TikTok Lite Rewards programme, which could have had highly addictive consequences. The DSA is in full swing.”
TikTok spokesperson Elliott Burton sent TechCrunch an announcement concerning the settlement: “We always strive to work constructively with the European Commission and other regulators. TikTok is pleased to have reached an amicable resolution and to have withdrawn the TikTok Lite rewards program, which was launched in France and Spain in April and which we had already voluntarily suspended.”
While the TikTok DSA case has now been closed, one other, broader investigation that was announced in February remains to be ongoing.
The case involves TikTok’s core algorithm, amongst other things. The commission said it was concerned that the design of the tracking-based suggestion engine could lead on to “rabbit hole effects,” where users who watch one video on a subject might be advisable more extreme videos, potentially amplifying harmful content, resembling videos promoting eating disorders.
The EU can be concerned that TikTok does not apply sufficiently robust age-based measures to protect children from accessing inappropriate content. TikTok’s compliance with the DSA’s transparency requirements can be under scrutiny.
For more information on how the DSA and its related regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), will impact Big Tech platforms, see our previous reports.
Technology
The latest model AI Google Gemma can work on phones

It grows “open” AI Google, Gemma, grows.
While Google I/O 2025 On Tuesday, Google removed Gemma 3N compresses, a model designed for “liquid” on phones, laptops and tablets. According to Google, available in a preview starting on Tuesday, Gemma 3N can support sound, text, paintings and flicks.
Models efficient enough to operate in offline mode and without the necessity to calculate within the cloud have gained popularity within the AI community lately. They will not be only cheaper to make use of than large models, but they keep privacy, eliminating the necessity to send data to a distant data center.
During the speech to I/O product manager, Gemma Gus Martins said that GEMMA 3N can work on devices with lower than 2 GB of RAM. “Gemma 3N shares the same architecture as Gemini Nano, and is also designed for incredible performance,” he added.
In addition to Gemma 3N, Google releases Medgemma through the AI developer foundation program. According to Medgemma, it’s essentially the most talented model to research text and health -related images.
“Medgemma (IS) OUR (…) A collection of open models to understand the text and multimodal image (health),” said Martins. “Medgemma works great in various imaging and text applications, thanks to which developers (…) could adapt the models to their own health applications.”
Also on the horizon there may be SignGEMMA, an open model for signaling sign language right into a spoken language. Google claims that Signgemma will allow programmers to create recent applications and integration for users of deaf and hard.
“SIGNGEMMA is a new family of models trained to translate sign language into a spoken text, but preferably in the American sign and English,” said Martins. “This is the most talented model of understanding sign language in history and we are looking forward to you-programmers, deaf and hard communities-to take this base and build with it.”
It is value noting that Gemma has been criticized for non -standard, non -standard license conditions, which in accordance with some developers adopted models with a dangerous proposal. However, this didn’t discourage programmers from downloading Gemma models tens of tens of millions of times.
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(Tagstransate) gemma
Technology
Trump to sign a criminalizing account of porn revenge and clear deep cabinets

President Donald Trump is predicted to sign the act on Take It Down, a bilateral law that introduces more severe punishments for distributing clear images, including deep wardrobes and pornography of revenge.
The Act criminalizes the publication of such photos, regardless of whether or not they are authentic or generated AI. Whoever publishes photos or videos can face penalty, including a advantageous, deprivation of liberty and restitution.
According to the brand new law, media firms and web platforms must remove such materials inside 48 hours of termination of the victim. Platforms must also take steps to remove the duplicate content.
Many states have already banned clear sexual desems and pornography of revenge, but for the primary time federal regulatory authorities will enter to impose restrictions on web firms.
The first lady Melania Trump lobbyed for the law, which was sponsored by the senators Ted Cruz (R-TEXAS) and Amy Klobuchar (d-minn.). Cruz said he inspired him to act after hearing that Snapchat for nearly a 12 months refused to remove a deep displacement of a 14-year-old girl.
Proponents of freedom of speech and a group of digital rights aroused concerns, saying that the law is Too wide And it will probably lead to censorship of legal photos, similar to legal pornography, in addition to government critics.
(Tagstransate) AI
Technology
Microsoft Nadella sata chooses chatbots on the podcasts

While the general director of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, says that he likes podcasts, perhaps he didn’t take heed to them anymore.
That the treat is approaching at the end longer profile Bloomberg NadellaFocusing on the strategy of artificial intelligence Microsoft and its complicated relations with Opeli. To illustrate how much she uses Copilot’s AI assistant in her day by day life, Nadella said that as a substitute of listening to podcasts, she now sends transcription to Copilot, after which talks to Copilot with the content when driving to the office.
In addition, Nadella – who jokingly described her work as a “E -Mail driver” – said that it consists of a minimum of 10 custom agents developed in Copilot Studio to sum up E -Mailes and news, preparing for meetings and performing other tasks in the office.
It seems that AI is already transforming Microsoft in a more significant way, and programmers supposedly the most difficult hit in the company’s last dismissals, shortly after Nadella stated that the 30% of the company’s code was written by AI.
(Tagstotransate) microsoft
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