EU laws are slow, sometimes stupid, but consistent.
the EU isn't a federal government. the UK, when it was in the EU did a full smoking inside ban, and tightened it after leaving.
It however had a massive problem with binge drinking and sorta didn't do much to stop that, apart from make it more expensive.
the netherlands has a smoking ban, but it was brought in later (I think). they had a different drinking culture so didn't have the same issues as the UK for drink.
That kind of issue is usually left to member states.
Packaging however is more the EU's purview
i hope i don’t have to go out of my way to explain the analogy.
The World Health Organization has reached the exact opposite conclusion.
The ICD-11 doesn't include 'social media addiction.' It doesn’t exist clinically. What they did include is 'Gaming Disorder', classifying your 'sword' alongside substance abuse and gambling.
My point is governments could just as easily justify video game crack-downs with this same logic. Is that something we should be cheering on? Really?
The discussion is whether companies are treated equally with regards to a particular law.
This is Fortnite, Minecraft, Netflix, Online Shopping, Dating Apps etc.
Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.” If TikTok continues to operate in the same manner despite a warning, sure, throw the book at them. Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years. Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.
Tiktok spend a lot of money talking to EU regulators. They know shits coming down the track because these directives have to be put into law by eu members. that takes time.
> Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.
But thats not the point, companies shouldn't be doing stuff they know is harmful. Thats literally the point of regulation.
That is basically what happened today. No penalties have been issued at this point.
Also Commission had sent various requests for information to TikTok in 2023 before they opened these proceedings in early 2024 (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...) - this didn't come out of the blue.
But instead you may see it as a discount on the money these companies are making from European citizens.
Lol. It's never like this.
These companies are given plenty of warnings and deadlines. After years and years of ignoring them these companies get slapped with a fine and start playing the victim.
BTW at this point DSA has been in effect for three years
The answer is "Yes".